The doctor weighed his reply. 'He lives. Whether he will, after the exhaustion of this prolonged fit of raving, I don't dare to predict. In the course of my experience I have never known anything like it. He lives: there's the miracle, but he lives.' 'On brandy?' 'That would soon have sped him.' 'Ha. You have everything here that you want?' 'Everything.' 'He's in your hands, Gannet.' The earl was conducted to a sitting-room, where Dr. Gannet left him for a while. Mindful that he was under the roof of his enemy, he remained standing, observing nothing. The voice overheard was off at a prodigious rate, like the far sound of a yell ringing on and on. The earl unconsciously sought a refuge from it by turning the leaves of a book upon the table, which was a complete edition of Harry Denham's Poems, with a preface by a man named Lydiard; and really, to read the preface one would suppose that these poets were the princes of the earth. Lord Romfrey closed the volume. It was exquisitely bound, and presented to Miss Denham by the Mr. Lydiard. 'The works of your illustrious father,' was written on the title-page. These writers deal queerly with their words of praise of one another. There is no law to restrain them. Perhaps it is the consolation they take for the poor devil's life they lead! A lady addressing him familiarly, invited him to go upstairs. He thanked her. At the foot of the stairs he turned; he had recognized Cecilia Halkett. Seeing her there was more strange to him than being there himself; but he bowed to facts. 'What do you think?' he said. She did not answer intelligibly. He walked up. The crazed gabbling tongue had entire possession of the house, and rang through it at an amazing pitch to sustain for a single minute. A reflection to the effect that dogs die more decently than we men, saddened the earl. But, then, it is true, we shorten their pangs by shooting them. A dismal figure loomed above him at the head of the stairs. He distinguished it in the vast lean length he had once whipped and flung to earth. Dr. Shrapnel was planted against the wall outside that raving chamber, at the salient angle of a common prop or buttress. The edge of a shoulder and a heel were the supports to him sideways in his distorted attitude. His wall arm hung dead beside his pendent frock-coat; the hair of his head had gone to wildness, like a field of barley whipped by tempest. One hand pressed his eyeballs: his unshaven jaw dropped. Lord Romfrey passed him by. The dumb consent of all present affirmed the creature lying on the bed to be Nevil Beauchamp. Face, voice, lank arms, chicken neck: what a sepulchral sketch of him! It was the revelry of a corpse.