his mind, and the sharp, angular eminence made in the clothes by
the dead man's upturned feet again caught his eye. He advanced and
drew the curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did so, from looking
at the face of the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the
outset by fastening some ghastly impression of it on his mind. He
drew the curtain very gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed
it. 'Poor fellow,' he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the
man. 'Ah, poor fellow!'

He went next to the window. The night was black, and he could see
nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily against the
glass. He inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the
back of the house; remembering that the front was sheltered from
the weather by the court and the buildings over it.

While he was still standing at the window--for even the dreary rain
was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because
it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life
and companionship in it--while he was standing at the window, and
looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a
distant church-clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the
time till the house was astir the next morning?

Under any other circumstances, he would have gone down to the
public-house parlour, would have called for his grog, and would
have laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as
if he had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling
away the time in this manner was distasteful to him. The new
situation in which he was placed seemed to have altered him to
himself already. Thus far, his life had been the common, trifling,