in raw kind and infinite measure, of the coming of
night upon the world he sailed by day. I heard nothing from my
tutor--no creak of the floor, no step, no periodical creaking of his
rocking-chair. He had not, then, thinks I, cast off his clothes; he
had not gone to reading for holy orders, as was, at intervals, his
custom--he had thrown himself on his bed. But I neither cared nor
wondered: I caught sight of my uncle's face again--half amazed, wholly
despondent, but yet with a little glint of incredulous delight
playing, in brief flashes, upon it--and I could think of nothing else,
not even of Judith, in her agony of mysterious shame upon the Whisper
Cove road, nor of her disquieting absence from the house, nor of the
rising wind, nor of the drear world I must courageously face when I
should awake from that night's sleep.

I considered my uncle.

"Do ye go t' bed, Dannie," says he, looking up at last. "Ye've trouble
enough."

I rose, but did not wish to leave him comfortless in the rising wind.
I had rather sit with him, since he needed me now, it seemed, more
than ever before.

"Ye'll not trouble about me, lad?"

I would not be troubled.

"That's good," says he. "No need o' your troublin' about _me_. Ol'
Nick Top's able t' take care o' _his_self! That's very good."

I started away for bed, but turned at the door, as was my custom, to
wish my uncle good-night. I said nothing, for he was in an indubitable
way not to be disturbed--having forgotten me and the affection I
sought at all times to give him. He was fallen dejectedly in his
chair, repeating, "_For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with
his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his
rebuke with the flames of fire._" I paused at the door to watch him,
and I saw that his maimed hand wandered over the table until it found
his glass, and that he caught and raised the glass, and that he set it
down again, and that he pushed the empty thing away.

I saw all that....

* * * * *

And I went to bed; but I did not go to sleep. In the first place, I
could not, and, for better reason, my tutor got astir the moment my
door was closed. I heard his cautious descent to the dining-room. The
man had been waiting to get me out of the way; but I heard him go
down, and that right easily, in the fall of his stockinged feet, and
in the click of his door-latch, and in the creak of the stair. I cast
my