figure, strong lineaments, and a
chin-beard in the American fashion. This person was carrying on one
shoulder a black portmanteau, seemingly of considerable weight. That he
should find a visitor removing baggage in the dead of night, recalled
some odd stories to the young man's memory; he had heard of lodgers who
thus gradually drained away, not only their own effects, but the very
furniture and fittings of the house that sheltered them; and now, in a
mood between pleasantry and suspicion, and aping the manner of a
drunkard, he roughly bumped against the man with the chin-beard and
knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor. With a face
struck suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chin-beard called
lamentably on the name of his Maker, and fell in a mere heap on the mat
at the foot of the stairs. At the same time, though only for a single
instant, the heads of the sick lodger and the Irish nurse popped out
like rabbits over the banisters of the first floor; and on both the same
scare and pallor were apparent.

The sight of this incredible emotion turned Somerset to stone, and he
continued speechless, while the man gathered himself together, and, with
the help of the hand-rail and audibly thanking God, scrambled once more
upon his feet.

"What in Heaven's name ails you?" gasped the young man as soon as he
could find words and utterance.

"Have you a drop of brandy?" returned the other. "I am sick."

Somerset administered two drams, one after the other, to the man with
the chin-beard; who then, somewhat restored, began to confound himself
in apologies for what he called his miserable nervousness, the result,
he said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having taken leave with a
hand that still sweated and trembled, he gingerly resumed his burthen
and departed.

Somerset retired to bed but not to sleep. What, he asked himself, had
been the contents of the black portmanteau? Stolen goods? the carcass of
one murdered? or--and at the thought he sat upright in bed--an infernal
machine? He took a solemn vow that he would set these doubts at rest;
and, with the next morning, installed himself beside the dining-room
window, vigilant with eye and ear, to await and profit by the earliest
opportunity.

The hours went heavily by. Within the house there was no circumstance of
novelty; unless it might be that the nurse more frequently made little
journeys round the corner of the square, and before afternoon was