f on my bed in the corner, T'otherest. It'll be broad day afore
three. I'll call you early.'

'I shall require no calling,' answered Bradley. And soon afterwards,
divesting himself only of his shoes and coat, laid himself down.

Riderhood, leaning back in his wooden arm-chair with his arms folded
on his breast, looked at him lying with his right hand clenched in his
sleep and his teeth set, until a film came over his own sight, and he
slept too. He awoke to find that it was daylight, and that his
visitor was already astir, and going out to the river-side to cool his
head:--'Though I'm blest,' muttered Riderhood at the Lock-house door,
looking after him, 'if I think there's water enough in all the Thames
to do THAT for you!' Within five minutes he had taken his departure,
and was passing on into the calm distance as he had passed yesterday.
Riderhood knew when a fish leaped, by his starting and glancing round.

'Lock ho! Lock!' at intervals all day, and 'Lock ho! Lock!' thrice in
the ensuing night, but no return of Bradley. The second day was sultry
and oppressive. In the afternoon, a thunderstorm came up, and had but
newly broken into a furious sweep of rain when he rushed in at the door,
like the storm itself.

'You've seen him with her!' exclaimed Riderhood, starting up.

'I have.'

'Where?'

'At his journey's end. His boat's hauled up for three days. I heard
him give the order. Then, I saw him wait for her and meet her. I saw
them'--he stopped as though he were suffocating, and began again--'I saw
them walking side by side, last night.'

'What did you do?'

'Nothing.'

'What are you going to do?'

He dropped into a chair, and laughed. Immediately afterwards, a great
spirt of blood burst from his nose.

'How does that happen?' asked Riderhood.

'I don't know. I can't keep it back. It has happened twice--three
times--four times--I don't know how many times--since last night. I
taste it, smell it, see it, it chokes me, and then it breaks out like
this.'

He went into the pelting rain again with his head bare, and, bending low
over the river, and scooping up the water with his two hands, washed the
blood away. All beyond his figure, as Riderhood looked from the door,
was a vast dark curtain in solemn movement towards one quarter of the
heavens. He raised his head and came back, wet from head to foot, but
with the lower parts of his sleeves, where he had dipped into the river,
streaming water.

'Your