If sleep had passed out of his eyes I felt with even a deeper pang that sanity had abandoned his spirit. From this moment I was prepared for the worst. There were in my friend, however, such confirmed habits of mildness that I found myself not in the least fearing he would prove unmanageable. As morning began fully to dawn upon us I brought our curious vigil to a close. Searle was so enfeebled that I gave him my hands to help him out of his chair, and he retained them for some moments after rising to his feet, unable as he seemed to keep his balance. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been once favoured, but don’t think I shall be favoured again. I shall soon be myself as fit to ‘appear’ as any of them. I shall haunt the master of Lackley! It can only mean one thing--that they’re getting ready for me on the other side of the grave.” When I touched the question of breakfast he replied that he had his breakfast in his pocket; and he drew from his travelling-bag a phial of morphine. He took a strong dose and went to bed. At noon I found him on foot again, dressed, shaved, much refreshed. “Poor fellow,” he said, “you’ve got more than you bargained for--not only a man with a grievance but a man with a ghost. Well, it won’t be for long!” It had of course promptly become a question whither we should now direct our steps. “As I’ve so little time,” he argued for this, “I should like to see the best, the best alone.” I answered that either for time or eternity I had always supposed Oxford to represent the English maximum, and for Oxford in the course of an hour we accordingly departed. IV