I was to sleep it off till morning. He would return in good season
and release me quietly, and nobody the wiser but the watchman; who
could be feed. This was plainly the purpose and the programme.

But Helen--

I returned to the table near which I had been sitting, and took the
office chair again, and tried, like a reasonable creature, to calm
myself.

What would Helen think by this time? I looked about the office
stupidly. At first the dreary scene presented few details to me; but
after a time they took on the precision and permanence which trifles
acquire in emergencies. The gas was not lighted, but I could see with
considerable ease, owing to the overwrought brain condition. It
occurred to me that I saw like a cat or a medium; I noted this, as
indicative of a certain remedy; and then it further occurred to me that
I might as well doctor myself, having nothing better to do; and plainly
there was something wrong. I therefore put my hand in my pocket for my
case. It was gone.

Now, a physician of my sort is as ill at ease without his case as he
would be without his body; and this little circumstance added
disproportionately to my discomfort. With some irritable exclamation
on my lips I leaned back in the chair, and once more regarded my
environment. It was a rather large room, dim now, and as solitary as a
graveyard after twilight. Before me stood the table, an oblong table
covered with brown felt. A blue blotter, of huge dimensions, was
spread from end to end; it was a new blotter, not much blurred.
Inkstand, pens, paper-weight, calendar, and other trifles of a strictly
necessary nature stood upon the blotter. Letters on file, and brokers'
memoranda neatly stabbed by the iron stiletto--I forget the name of the
thing--for that purpose made and provided, attracted my sick attention.
An advertisement from a Western mortgage firm had escaped the neat hand
of the clerk who put the office in order for the night, and fell
fluttering to my feet. It would be impossible to say how important
this seemed to me. I picked it up conscientiously and filed it, to the
best of my remembrance, with an invitation to the Merchant's Banquet,
and a subscription list in behalf of the blind man who sold
tissue-paper roses at the head of the street.

In one corner of the room, as I have said, was the clerk's desk; the
electric signal shone faintly above it; it had, to my eyes, a certain
phosphorescent appearance. Opposite,