A reflection to the effect that dogs die more decently than we men,
saddened the earl. But, then, it is true, we shorten their pangs by
shooting them.

A dismal figure loomed above him at the head of the stairs.

He distinguished it in the vast lean length he had once whipped and flung
to earth.

Dr. Shrapnel was planted against the wall outside that raving chamber, at
the salient angle of a common prop or buttress. The edge of a shoulder
and a heel were the supports to him sideways in his distorted attitude.
His wall arm hung dead beside his pendent frock-coat; the hair of his
head had gone to wildness, like a field of barley whipped by tempest.
One hand pressed his eyeballs: his unshaven jaw dropped.

Lord Romfrey passed him by.

The dumb consent of all present affirmed the creature lying on the bed to
be Nevil Beauchamp.

Face, voice, lank arms, chicken neck: what a sepulchral sketch of him!

It was the revelry of a corpse.

Shudders of alarm for his wife seized Lord Romfrey at the sight. He
thought the poor thing on the bed must be going, resolving to a cry,
unwinding itself violently in its hurricane of speech, that was not
speech nor exclamation, rather the tongue let loose to run to the death.
It seemed to be out in mid-sea, up wave and down wave.