purchased on the spot, without considering that there was no room for
it in the library? There it leaned against the wall,--not so big as the
Vicar's family-picture, but quite as much in the way.

"The room looks loaded. I ought to have a gallery for these things. I
wonder if I couldn't buy Carter's house, and push a gallery through from
the top of my stairway."

He touched the bell, and lay down again.

Martin entered softly, let down the crimson curtains, so as to exclude
the vanishing light, and stirred the crimson cannel into a newer
radiance.

"This weather frets my nerves, Martin. My face aches. Give me the bottle
of chloroform in my chamber."

He inhaled the subtile fluid two or three times, and handed it back to
Martin. It made no difference, he said. He would try to sleep. So Martin
went out on tiptoe and closed the door.

The chloroform probably did relieve him, for he thought no more of the
uneasiness in his face; but he was not only not at all sleepy, but
every sense seemed wide awake,--wide awake to its utmost capacity of
perception. It was as if a misty veil were suddenly removed from before
his eyes, and he saw, what indeed had always been there, but what in his
abstraction or inattention he had never before noticed. For instance, he
noticed at once that Martin had not quite closed the curtains, but had
left an inch or two open, and the window open besides. The air, however,
had grown soft, and the wind must have gone down, for it did not stir