some
weeks now he had been reading as hard as mortal man can read. He was
trying to make up for lost time and money in a way that showed
conclusively he did not understand the value of either. For no ordinary
man--and Marriott was in every sense an ordinary man--can afford to
drive the mind as he had lately been driving his, without sooner or
later paying the cost.

Among the students he had few friends or acquaintances, and these few
had promised not to disturb him at night, knowing he was at last reading
in earnest. It was, therefore, with feelings a good deal stronger than
mere surprise that he heard his door-bell ring on this particular night
and realised that he was to have a visitor. Some men would simply have
muffled the bell and gone on quietly with their work. But Marriott was
not this sort. He was nervous. It would have bothered and pecked at his
mind all night long not to know who the visitor was and what he wanted.
The only thing to do, therefore, was to let him in--and out again--as
quickly as possible.

The landlady went to bed at ten o'clock punctually, after which hour
nothing would induce her to pretend she heard the bell, so Marriott
jumped up from his books with an exclamation that augured ill for the
reception of his caller, and prepared to let him in with his own hand.

The streets of Edinburgh town were very still at this late hour--it was
late for Edinburgh--and in the quiet neighbourhood of F---- Street,
where Marriott lived on the third floor, scarcely a sound broke the
silence. As he crossed the floor, the bell rang a second time, with
unnecessary clamour, and he unlocked the door and passed into the
little hallway with considerable wrath and annoyance in his heart at the
insolence of the double interruption.

"The fellows all know I'm reading for this exam. Why in the world do
they come to bother me at such an unearthly hour?"

The inhabitants of the building, with himself, were medical students,
general students, poor Writers to the Signet, and some others whose
vocations were perhaps not so obvious. The stone staircase, dimly
lighted at each floor by a gas-jet that would not turn above a certain
height, wound down to the level of the street with no pretence at carpet
or railing. At some levels it was cleaner than at others. It depended on
the landlady of the particular level.

The acoustic properties of a spiral staircase seem to be peculiar.
Marriott, standing by the open door, book