and the creatures of his own brain laid their fingers on his eyelid so
that he could not sleep.

When at last sheer weariness overcame him, his mind was still at work,
not in orderly sequence but along trails monstrous and grotesque.
Hobgoblins seemed to steal through the hall, and leering incubi
oppressed his soul with terrible burdens. In the morning he awoke
unrested. The tan vanished from his face and little lines appeared in
the corners of his mouth. It was as if his nervous vitality were sapped
from him in some unaccountable way. He became excited, hysterical. Often
at night when he wrote his pot-boilers for the magazines, fear stood
behind his seat, and only the buzzing of the elevator outside brought
him back to himself.

In one of his morbid moods he wrote a sonnet which he showed to Reginald
after the latter's return from a short trip out of town. Reginald read
it, looking at the boy with a curious, lurking expression.

_O gentle Sleep, turn not thy face away,
But place thy finger on my brow, and take
All burthens from me and all dreams that ache;
Upon mine eyes a cooling balsam lay,
Seeing I am aweary of the day.
But, lo! thy lips are ashen and they quake.
What spectral vision sees thou that can shake
Thy sweet composure, and thy heart dismay?
Perhaps some murderer's cruel eye agleam
Is fixed upon me, or some monstrous dream
Might bring such fearful guilt upon the head
Of my unvigilant soul as would arouse