And here he smiled, by way of showing to this old palmer that he saw through the slight infirmity of mind that impelled him to say such things as the above; that he was not its dupe, though he had not strength, just now, to resist its impulse. After this he dozed off softly, and felt through all his sleep some twinges of his wound, bringing him back, as it were, to the conscious surface of the great deep of slumber, into which he might otherwise have sunk. At all such brief intervals, half unclosing his eyes, (like a child, when the mother sits by its bed and he fears that she will steal away if he falls quite asleep, and leave him in the dark solitude,) he still beheld the white-bearded, kindly old man, of saintly aspect, sitting near him, and turning over the pages of his folio volume so softly that not the faintest rustle did it make; the picture at length got so fully into his idea, that he seemed to see it even through his closed eyelids. After a while, however, the slumberous tendency left him more entirely, and, without having been consciously awake, he found himself contemplating the old man, with wide-open eyes. The venerable personage seemed soon to feel his gaze, and, ceasing to look at the folio, he turned his eyes with quiet inquiry to meet those of the stranger. [Endnote: 5.] “What great volume is that?” asked the latter. [Endnote: 6.] “It is a book of English chronicles,” said the old man, “mostly relating to the part of the island where you now are, and to times previous to the Stuarts.” “Ah! it is to you, a contemporary, what reading the newspaper is to other men,” said the stranger; then, with a smile of self-reproach, “I shall conquer this idle mood. I’m not so imbecile as you must think me. But there is something that strangely haunts me,--where, in what state of being, can I have seen your face before. There is nothing in it I distinctly remember; but some impression, some characteristic, some look, with which I have been long ago familiar haunts me and brings back all old scenes. Do you know me?” The old man smiled. “I knew, long ago, a bright and impressible boy,” said he. “And his name?” said the stranger. “It was Edward Redclyffe,” said the old man. “Ah, I see who you are,” said the traveller, not too earnestly, but with a soft, gratified feeling, as the riddle thus far solved itself. “You are my old kindly instructor. You are Colcord! That is it. I remember you disappeared. You shall tell me, when I am quite myself, what was that mystery,--and whether it is your real self, or only a part of my dream, and going to vanish when I quite awake. Now I shall sleep and dream more of it.” One more waking interval he had that day, and again essayed to enter into conversation with the old man, who had thus strangely again become connected with his life, after having so long vanished from his path. “Where am I?” asked Edward Redclyffe. “In the home of misfortune,” said Colcord.