come to no other conclusion than that the best course for her
peace was to do nothing, and to keep to myself what I had heard. If
I went to sleep for a few moments, the image of Agnes with her tender
eyes, and of her father looking fondly on her, as I had so often seen
him look, arose before me with appealing faces, and filled me with vague
terrors. When I awoke, the recollection that Uriah was lying in the next
room, sat heavy on me like a waking nightmare; and oppressed me with a
leaden dread, as if I had had some meaner quality of devil for a lodger.

The poker got into my dozing thoughts besides, and wouldn't come out. I
thought, between sleeping and waking, that it was still red hot, and I
had snatched it out of the fire, and run him through the body. I was so
haunted at last by the idea, though I knew there was nothing in it, that
I stole into the next room to look at him. There I saw him, lying on his
back, with his legs extending to I don't know where, gurglings taking
place in his throat, stoppages in his nose, and his mouth open like
a post-office. He was so much worse in reality than in my distempered
fancy, that afterwards I was attracted to him in very repulsion, and
could not help wandering in and out every half-hour or so, and taking
another look at him. Still, the long, long night seemed heavy and
hopeless as ever, and no promise of day was in the murky sky.

When I saw him going downstairs early in the morning (for, thank Heaven!
he would not stay to breakfast), it appeared to me as if the night was
going away in his person. When I went out to the Commons, I charged
Mrs. Crupp with particular directions to leave the windows open, that my
sitting-room might be aired, and purged of his presence.

CHAPTER 26. I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY

I saw no more of Uriah Heep, until the day when Agnes left town. I was
at the coach office to take leave of her and see her go; and there was
he, returning to Canterbury by the same conveyance. It was some small
satisfaction to me to observe his spare, short-waisted, high-shouldered,
mulberry-coloured great-coat perched up, in company with an umbrella
like a small tent, on the edge of the back seat on the roof, while
Agnes was, of course, inside; but what I underwent in my efforts to be
friendly with him, while Agnes looked on, perhaps deserved that little
recompense. At the coach window, as at the dinner-party, he hovered
about us without a moment's intermission, like