deed, with an evident distaste for words; but at the end of the
first day's visit had asked him abruptly, peremptorily even, to
come again.

When he entered Marsham's room he found the invalid asleep under the
influence of morphia. The valet, a young fellow, was noiselessly putting
things straight. Lankester noticed that he looked pale.

"A bad time?" he said, in a whisper, standing beside the carefully
regulated spinal couch on which Marsham was sleeping.

"Awful, sir. He was fair beside himself till we gave him the morphia."

"Is there anybody sitting up?"

"No. He'll be quiet now for six or seven hours. I shall be in the next
room."

The young man spoke wearily. It was clear that the moral strain of what
he had just seen had weighed upon him as much as the fatigue of the
day's attendance.

"Come!" said Lankester, looking at him. "You want a good night. Go to my
room. I'll lie down there." He pointed to Marsham's bedroom, now
appropriated to the valet, while the master, for the sake of space and
cheerfulness, had been moved into the sitting-room. The servant
hesitated, protested, and was at last persuaded, being well aware of
Marsham's liking for this queer, serviceable being.

Lankester took various directions from him, and packed him off. Then,
instead of going to the adjoining room, he chose a chair beside a shaded
lamp, and said to himself that he would sleep by the fire.

Presently the huge house sank into a silence even more profound than
that in which it was now steeped by day. A cold autumn wind blew round
about it. After midnight the wind dropped, and the temperature with it.
The first severe frost laid its grip on forest and down and garden.
Silently the dahlias and the roses died, the leaves shrivelled and
blackened, and a cold and glorious moon rose upon the ruins of
the summer.

Lankester dozed and woke, keeping up the fire, and wrapping himself in
an eider-down, with which the valet had provided him. In the small hours
he walked across the room to look at Marsham. He was lying still and
breathing heavily. His thick fair hair, always slightly gray from the
time he was thirty, had become much grayer of late; the thin handsome
face was drawn and damp, the eyes cavernous, the lips bloodless. Even in
sleep his aspect showed what he had suffered.

Poor, poor old fellow!

Lankester's whole being softened into pity. Yet he had no illusions as
to the man before him--a man of inferior _morale_ and w