It was a wild autumn night, the wind rising and calling warningly down the chimney. The room was dark, the curtains closely drawn. One gleam of light, narrow and pointed, pierced through the uncurtained window in the corridor and fell on the tumbled bed. She had dragged the sheets up roughly; the blankets were in billows under the cotton quilt, the bolster, in a case of some coarse, dark stuff, was half doubled and partly buried beneath the humped-up coverings. As she gave the last look back before shutting the door she was struck by the oddity of that untidy bed. Quite unwittingly, in her hurried gathering of linen, she had achieved the similitude of a human form. The appearance was sufficiently startling. It was one of those queer, accidental effects which sometimes occur. The tumbled blankets, under the white quilt which she had hastily smoothed, the doubled, coarsely-covered bolster, half hidden, were like the curled-up body and round head of some sleeper. She went softly along the passage, down the steps, round the angles, in the dark, knowing every turn of the way. When she reached the guest-room she locked the door, lighted the candle, and made the bed. Directly she was in the shadow of the dim old hangings she fell asleep. When the house was quiet and dark Gainah crept out of her room and slipped, in her flat cloth shoes, down the stairs. She had not undressed, had not even taken the band of dusty velvet from the top of her head. She crept down to the lower rooms, where the fires were still burning steadily, and where every article of furniture, new or old, took fantastic shape. She went about lingeringly from one room to the other, moving about slowly and stiffly in the dim circle of light which came from the candle in her quivering hand. She walked about through one room into another, along the corridor and back again. Sometimes she sat down for a moment: sometimes she just stealthily opened a door and peered in. The two clocks, the eight-day in the dining-room and the thirty-hour in the kitchen, had clanging tongues of brass. They were the only sounds in the sleeping house. The hours struck. She did not seem to notice. A threatening change had come over her. She was full of fever and tremor. Her cold eyes burned with the fire of amethysts. Her ever-increasing restlessness would not let her stay in one room long. She went about wearily, stiffly, driven by some malignant whip. She went into the drawing-room and screwed herself awkwardly at one end of the cozy corner. She started up almost immediately. To her hardihood there was a feeling of oppressive luxury and enervation about that soft, gayly-tricked room. She was such a persistent worker that her back felt strange against stuffing; she was more at ease with the broad bars of a rush-seated chair cutting from shoulder to shoulder. She went out in the kitchen and moved about uneasily, peering, by long habit, into drawers, and sniffing, like an eager old dog, for fire.