ns. I pay for the work I want done, and, in return for
my liberality, I am treated with the most infamous indifference on
all sides. A stranger in the country, and badly acquainted with the
language, I can do nothing to help myself. The authorities, both at Rome
and in this place, pretend to assist me, pretend to search and inquire
as I would have them search and inquire, and do nothing more. I am
insulted, laughed at, almost to my face."

"Do you not think it possible--mind, I have no wish to excuse the
misconduct of the authorities, and do not share in any such opinion
myself--but do you not think it likely that the police may doubt whether
you are in earnest?"

"Not in earnest!" he cried, starting up and confronting me fiercely,
with wild eyes and quickened breath. "Not in earnest! _You_ think I'm
not in earnest too. I know you think it, though you tell me you don't.
Stop; before we say another word, your own eyes shall convince you. Come
here--only for a minute--only for one minute!"

I followed him into his bedroom, which opened out of the sitting-room.
At one side of his bed stood a large packing-case of plain wood, upward
of seven feet in length.

"Open the lid and look in," he said, "while I hold the candle so that
you can see."

I obeyed his directions, and discovered to my astonishment that the
packing-case contained a leaden coffin, magnificently emblazoned with
the arms of the Monkton family, and inscribed in old-fashioned letters
with the name of "Stephen Monkton," his age and the manner of his death
being added underneath.

"I keep his coffin ready for him," whispered Alfred, close at my ear.
"Does that look like earnest?"

It looked more like insanity--so like that I shrank from answering him.

"Yes! yes! I see you are convinced," he continued quickly; "we may go
back into the next room, and may talk without restraint on either side
now."

On returning to our places, I mechanically moved my chair away from
the table. My mind was by this time in such a state of confusion and
uncertainty about what it would be best for me to say or do next, that I
forgot for the moment the position he had assigned to me when we lit the
candles. He reminded me of this directly.

"Don't move away," he said, very earnestly; "keep on sitting in the
light; pray do! I'll soon tell you why I am so particular about
that. But first give me your advice; help me in my great distress and
suspense. Remember, you promised me