say, but with startling abruptness thought returned, and I became madly anxious to ascertain my present state--how it differed from my former--and my whereabouts. I was conscious of sound and light and motion, but conscious of them merely from the point of observation, as things quite outside myself--things that in no way sensibly affected me. What particularly impressed me was the silence--the passivity--of what, I believed, constituted my body. I could detect no heart movement, no pulsation whatever. I seemed to be there--to have a very familiar form--but to be nothing more than form--to have no tangibility. So far my eyes had seen; but, purposely, I had not allowed myself to discriminate objects. I was intuitively certain my power of vision had become supernormal; and I dreaded to employ it for fear I should see too much--too acutely. I had a stupendous sense of impending horror. At length, however, I was impelled by an irresistible fascination to look. I did so, and in an instant became the spectator of a drama. Before me, seated at a grimy wooden table, were two men, clad in the fascinating garb of the latter part of the eighteenth century--long coat, befrilled vest, knee breeches, and peruke. Two mugs of ale were placed in front of them, and the one man kept on sipping, while the other, seldom touching the ale, took long and vigorous puffs at a pipe. The room had a very low ceiling, blackened with smoke, and traversed by enormous oaken beams; a chimney corner, in which sat an old man, munching something out of a very dirty-looking bag, and, at the same time, taking occasional pinches of snuff; and a couch, stowed away in one corner, and piled several feet high with a variety of books, papers, cushions, and wearing apparel. The general atmosphere of the place suggested an inn or tavern. It was with the two men in the foreground, however, that something told me I was most concerned. They appeared to be about the same age and of the same class; but there all similarity ended. The one was tall and thin, with dark, deep-set, and very restless eyes--and oddly noticeable hands. They were large and sinewy, with peculiarly long fingers and protruding knuckles. His companion was small and shrivelled, with watery blue eyes and a particularly weak mouth. "Strange we should meet like this, John," the shorter of the two remarked, taking a big gulp of ale. "Ten years since we last saw one another, and that was in Bristol. Do you recollect the occasion?" "Do I recollect it?" the other responded. "Can I ever forget it? You had just come from her. She had accepted you. Money, of course. I had nothing to offer her but love. Love! What's the good of love without prospects?" "It was a fair fight, John."