weariness of his face. He, the old servant, had been a soldier; knew how
to fulfil, then, a request or an order. Something crinkled in the
speaker's hand, passed to the other who was now busying himself with the
bath; the man's moist fingers did not hesitate to close on the note. He
had been a hardened campaigner and incidentally a good forager; he
remarked at once he would carry out to the letter all his master's
visitor asked.

Half an hour later, John Steele, clad in his dressing-gown, sat alone
near the fire in his room; every sound had ceased save at intervals a
low creaking of old timber. Now it came from overhead, then from the
hall or near the window, as if spirit feet or fingers were busy in that
venerable, quaint domicile. But these faint noises, inseparable from
houses with a history, John Steele did not hear; the food and the bath
had awakened in him a momentary alertness; he seemed waiting--for what?
Something that did not happen; heaviness, depression again weighed on
him; to keep awake he stirred himself and again glanced about. Here were
evidences of odd taste on the part of the tenant in the matter of
household decoration; a chain and ball that had once been worn by a
certain famous convict reposed on an _étagère_, instead of the customary
vase or jug of pottery; other souvenirs of prisons and the people that
had been in them adorned a few shelves and brackets.

John Steele smiled grimly; but soon his thoughts seemed floating off
beyond control, and rising suddenly, he threw himself on the bed. For a
moment he strove to consider one or two tasks that should have been
accomplished this night but which he must defer; was vaguely conscious
of the slamming of a blind next door; then over-strained nature yielded.

Hours passed; the sun rose high in the heavens, began to sink; still the