a
very loathsome Oriental disease, which, fortunately is, in this
country, rare. The hotel, though newly decorated and equipped
throughout with every up-to-date convenience, was in reality very
old. It was one of those delightfully roomy erections that seem built
for eternity rather than time, and for comfort rather than economy of
space. The interior, with its oak-panelled walls, polished oak floors,
and low ceilings, traversed with ponderous oaken beams, also impressed
me pleasantly, whilst a flight of broad, oak stairs, fenced with
balustrades a foot thick, brought me to a seemingly interminable
corridor, into which the door of Miss Vining's room opened. It was a
low, wainscoted apartment, and its deep-set window, revealing the
thickness of the wall, looked out upon a dismal yard littered with
brooms and buckets. Opposite the foot of the bed--a modern French
bedstead, by the bye, whose brass fittings and somewhat flimsy
hangings were strangely incongruous with their venerable
surroundings--was an ingle, containing the smouldering relics of what
had doubtless been intended for a fire, but which needed considerable
coaxing before it could be converted from a pretence to a reality.
There was no exit save by the doorway I had entered, and no furniture
save a couple of rush-bottomed chairs and a table strewn with an
untidy medley of writing materials and medicine bottles.

A feeling of depression, contrasting strangely with the effect
produced on me by the cheerfulness of the hotel in general, seized me
directly I entered the room. Despite the brilliancy of the electric
light and the new and gaudy bed-hangings, the air was full of gloom--a
gloom which, for the very reason that it was unaccountable, was the
more alarming. I felt it hanging around me like the undeveloped shadow
of something singularly hideous and repulsive, and, on my approaching
the sick woman, it seemed to thrust itself in my way and force me
back.

Miss Vining was decidedly good-looking; she had the typically
theatrical features--neatly moulded nose and chin, curly yellow hair,
and big, dreamy blue eyes that especially appeal to a certain class of
men; like most women, however, I prefer something more solid, both
physically and intellectually--I cannot stand "the pretty, pretty."
She was, of course, far too ill to converse, and, beyond a few
desultory and spasmodic ejaculations, maintained a rigid silence. As
there was no occasion for me to sit close