the outside of the bed for an hour's troubled slumber.




CHAPTER IV


When his servant called him about eight o'clock my brother sent a note
to Mr. Gaskell at New College, begging him to come round to Magdalen
Hall as soon as might be in the course of the morning. His summons was
at once obeyed, and Mr. Gaskell was with him before he had finished
breakfast. My brother was still much agitated, and at once told him what
had happened the night before, detailing the various circumstances with
minuteness, and not even concealing from him the sentiments which he
entertained towards Miss Constance Temple. In narrating the appearance
which he had seen in the chair, his agitation was still so excessive
that he had difficulty in controlling his voice.

Mr. Gaskell heard him with much attention, and did not at once reply
when John had finished his narration. At length he said, "I suppose many
friends would think it right to affect, even if they did not feel, an
incredulity as to what you have just told me. They might consider it
more prudent to attempt to allay your distress by persuading you that
what you have seen has no objective reality, but is merely the phantasm
of an excited imagination; that if you had not been in love, had not sat
up all night, and had not thus overtaxed your physical powers, you would
have seen no vision. I shall not argue thus, for I am as certainly
convinced as of the fact that we sit here, that on all the nights when
we have played this suite called the 'Areopagita,' there has been some