Hour after hour steals by. The fire, dimmer and dimmer, at length goes out, and darkness fills the room. The storm, with its sky of heavy clouds, sweeps away, and now the full moon comes up in silvery brightness. Cold, clear and cheerless the flood of light poured in at the open windows, lighting up like the ghost of day that chamber of death. Chilled through and through, Dudley awakes. For a moment he gazed in startled wonder at the strange scene around him. Then a dim recollection of the night stole over his now sobered brain, and seizing his cap he strode toward the door—to find it locked! In vain he pulled and knocked, the echoes that rung through the silent room were his only answers. The stout door resisted all attempts to break it open. Foiled and disheartened he returned to the stove. Dudley shook with the cold that had numbed his limbs while sleeping, and now seemed to be penetrating to his very heart. Stooping, he raked among the ashes and found one live coal. Taking this gently up he made many efforts to kindle it to a blaze, but this last spark died out in the midst of his exertions. Nothing daunted, he looked to find some covering to shield him—nothing could be seen save the sheets thrown carelessly over the dead. These he proceeded to gather. Pulling the frail covering from form after form, leaving exposed the emaciated remnants of consumption, the half-destroyed remains of quick disease, without a shudder—why starts he at this over which the moonlight falls so brightly—why gasp for breath and stare so wildly? This cannot be—this is a hideous dream. He strikes his forehead, wrings his hands, staggers forward. No, no, he cannot look again. A chill horror curdles about his heart and he reels toward the door. He had one look—but one—yet that is frozen into his very soul. How long in dreadful agony he stood gazing down the hall, peopled with the dead. He dared not turn to where she lay—the poor little timid girl—she who so confidingly had trusted him, and now rested among thieves, murderers, and cast-out poverty—claimed by Decay alone. He dared not look again—over her innocent form stood fearful Retribution—silent as the grave—terrible as Death. His eyes wandered from table to table, one by one, slower and slower, until they rested upon that long, grinning monument of consumption, upon which the moonlight fell, silvering the hard and bony points, that seemed like a skeleton covered with yellow parchment.