forward over the table to listen, while he related the fact with studied
unconcern for his own part in it, but with a serious regard for the
integrity of the fact itself, which he had no wish to exaggerate as to
its immediate meaning or remoter implications. It did not yet occur to
him that it had none; they were simply to be matters of future
observation in a second ordeal; for the first emotion which the incident
imparted was the feeling that it would happen again, and in this return
would interpret itself. Hewson was so strongly persuaded of something of
the kind, that after standing for an indefinite period at the window in
his pajamas, he got hardily back into bed, and waited for the repetition.
He was agreeably aware of waiting without a tremor, and rather eagerly
than otherwise; then he began to feel drowsy, and this at first flattered
him, as a proof of his strange courage in circumstances which would have
rendered sleep impossible to most men; but in another moment he started
from it. If he slept every one would say he had dreamt the whole thing;
and he could never himself be quite sure that he had not.

He got up, and began to dress, thinking all the time, in a dim way, how
very long it would be till breakfast, and wondering what he should do
till then with his appetite and his apparition. It was now only a little
after four o'clock of the June morning, and nobody would be down till
after eight; most people at that very movable feast, which St. John had
in the English fashion, did not show themselves before nine. It was
impossible to get a book and read for five hours; he would be dropping
with hunger if he walked so long. Yet he must not sleep; and he must do
something to keep from sleeping. He remembered a little interloping
hotel, which had lately forced its way into precincts sacred to cottage
life, and had impudently called itself the St. Johnswort Inn, after St.
John's place, by a name which he prided himself on having poetically
invented from his own and that of a prevalent wild flower. Upon the