heavy sleep of utter exhaustion claimed him. Once or twice the servant
came to the door, listened, and stole away again. The afternoon was well
advanced when, as half through a dream, John Steele heard the rude
jingling of a bell,--the catmeat man, or the milkman, drowsily he told
himself. In fancy he seemed to see the broad, flowing river from a
window of his own chambers, the dawn stealing over, marshaling its
tints,--crimson until--

Slowly through the torpor of his brain realization began also to dawn;
this room?--it was not his. The gleaming lances of sunlight that darted
through the half-closed shutters played on the strange wall-paper of a
strange apartment; no, he remembered it now--last night!

The loud and emphatic closing of the front gate served yet more speedily
to arouse him; hastily he sat up; his head buzzed from a long-needed
sleep that had been over sound; his limbs still ached, but every sense
on an instant became unnaturally keen. Footsteps resounded on the
gravel; he heard voices; those of two men, who were coming toward the
house.

"So it's the meter man you are?" John Steele recognized the inquiring
voice as that of the caretaker. "Sure, you're a new one from the last
that was here."

"Yes; we change beats occasionally," was the careless answer, as the men
passed around the side of the house and entered a rear door. For a time
there was silence; John Steele sprang from his bed and crept very softly
toward the hall. "A new man--" He heard them talking again after a few
minutes; he remained listening at his door, now slightly ajar.