nd a priest's bigotry--would suffer me
to see him no more? What wonder that the second evening found me like
the first--untamed, tortured, again pacing a solitary room in an
unalterable passion of silent desolation?

Madame Beck did not herself summon me to bed that night--she did not
come near me: she sent Ginevra Fanshawe--a more efficient agent for the
purpose she could not have employed. Ginevra's first words--"Is your
headache very bad to-night?" (for Ginevra, like the rest, thought I had
a headache--an intolerable headache which made me frightfully white in
the face, and insanely restless in the foot)--her first words, I say,
inspired the impulse to flee anywhere, so that it were only out of
reach. And soon, what followed--plaints about her own
headaches--completed the business.

I went up-stairs. Presently I was in my bed--my miserable bed--haunted
with quick scorpions. I had not been laid down five minutes, when
another emissary arrived: Goton came, bringing me something to drink. I
was consumed with thirst--I drank eagerly; the beverage was sweet, but
I tasted a drug.

"Madame says it will make you sleep, chou-chou," said Goton, as she
received back the emptied cup.

Ah! the sedative had been administered. In fact, they had given me a
strong opiate. I was to be held quiet for one night.

The household came to bed, the night-light was lit, the dormitory
hushed. Sleep soon reigned: over those pillows, sleep won an easy
supremacy: contented sovereign over heads and hearts which did not
ache--he passed by the unquiet.

The drug wrought. I know not whether Madame had overcharged or
under-charged the dose; its result was not that she intended. Instead
of stupor, came excitement. I became alive to new thought--to reverie
peculiar in colouring. A gathering call ran among the faculties, their
bugles sang, their trumpets rang an untimely summons. Imagination was
roused from her rest, and she came forth impetuous and venturous. With
scorn she looked on Matter, her mate--"Rise!" she said. "Sluggard! this
night I will have _my_ will; nor shalt thou prevail."

"Look forth and view the night!" was her cry; and when I lifted the
heavy blind from the casement close at hand--with her own royal
gesture, she showed me a moon supreme, in an element deep and splendid.

To my gasping senses she made the glimmering gloom, the narrow limits,
the oppressive heat of the dormitory, intolerable. She lured me to
leave this den and