poor fellow should take a fancy to visit his mistress by
moonlight, when he was safe in his room Lord Kew softly turned the key
in Mr. Jack's door.

CHAPTER XXX. A Retreat

As Clive lay awake revolving the strange incidents of the day, and
speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to
take a certain part, a sure presentiment told him that his own happy
holiday was come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had
always somehow foreboded, were about to break and obscure this brief
pleasant period of sunshine. He rose at a very early hour, flung his
windows open, looked out no doubt towards those other windows in the
neighbouring hotel, where he may have fancied he saw a curtain stirring,
drawn by a hand that every hour now he longed more to press. He turned
back into his chamber with a sort of groan, and surveyed some of the
relics of the last night's little feast, which still remained on the
table. There were the champagne-flasks which poor Jack Belsize had
emptied, the tall seltzer-water bottle, from which the gases had issued
and mingled with the hot air of the previous night's talk; glasses with
dregs of liquor, ashes of cigars, or their black stumps, strewing the
cloth; the dead men, the burst guns of yesterday's battle. Early as it
was, his neighbour J. J had been up before him. Clive could hear him
singing as was his wont when the pencil went well, and the colours
arranged themselves to his satisfaction over his peaceful and happy
work.

He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his board and
colour-box, filled a great glass from the seltzer-water bottle, drank
some of the vapid liquor, and plunged his brushes in the rest, with
which he began to paint. The work all went wrong. There was no song
for him over his labour; he dashed brush and board aside after a while,
opened his drawers, pulled out his portmanteaus from under the bed, and
fell to packing mechanically. J. J. heard the noise from the next room,
and came in smiling, with a great painting-brush in his mouth.

"Have the bills in, J. J.," says Clive. "Leave your cards on your
friends, old boy; say good-bye to that pretty little strawberry-girl
whose picture you have been doing; polish it off to-day, and dry the
little thing's tears. I read P.P.C. in the stars last night, and my
familiar spirit came to me in a vision, and said, 'Clive, son of Thomas,
put thy travelling-boots on.'"

Lest any prematu