swollen face, wide-open mouth, and half-open eyes, dead drunk, a
heap of ruin. A bit of glowing tinder fell on her forehead. She
opened her eyes, looked up, uttered a terrified cry, closed them,
and was again motionless, except for her breathing. On one side of
her lay a bottle, on the other a chamber-candlestick upset, with the
candle guttered into a mass.

With the help of the water-jugs, and the bath which stood ready in
his room, he succeeded at last in putting out the fire, and then
turned his attention to Mistress Croale. Her breathing had grown so
stertorous that he was alarmed, and getting more water, bathed her
head, and laid a wet handkerchief on it, after which he sat down and
watched her. It would have made a strange picture: the middle of
the night, the fire-blasted bed, the painful, ugly carcase on the
floor, and the sad yet--I had almost said radiant youth, watching
near. The slow night passed.

The gray of the morning came, chill and cheerless. Mistress Croale
stirred, moved, crept up rather than rose to a sitting position, and
stretched herself yawning. Gibbie had risen and stood over her.
She caught sight of him; absolute terror distorted her sodden face;
she stared at him, then stared about her, like one who had suddenly
waked in hell. He took her by the arm. She obeyed, rose, and
stood, fear conquering the remnants of drunkenness, with her
whisky-scorched eyes following his every movement, as he got her
cloak and bonnet. He put them on her. She submitted like a child
caught in wickedness, and cowed by the capture. He led her from the
house, out into the dark morning, made her take his arm, and away
they walked together, down to the riverside. She gave a reel now
and then, and sometimes her knees would double under her; but Gibbie
was no novice at the task, and brought her safe to the door of her
lodging--of which, in view of such a possibility, he had been paying
the rent all the time. He opened the door with her pass-key, led
her up the stair, unlocked the door of her garret, placed her in a
chair, and left her, closing the doors gently behind him.
Instinctively she sought her bed, fell upon it, and slept again.

When she woke, her dim mind was haunted by a terrible vision of
resurrection and damnation, of which the only point she could
plainly recall, was an angel, as like Sir Gibbie as he could look,
hanging in the air above her, and sending out flames on all sides of
him, whi