He had strength enough to raise that little note to his lips so soon as he heard the door shut behind the outgoing Stephens; to kiss it over and over again, and to place it beneath his pillow ere he sunk into such imitation of rest as was vouchsafed to him. A want of sleep was one of the worst symptoms of his malady, and the doctors had all agreed that if they could only superinduce something like natural sleep, it might aid greatly in repairing the little strength which had been given to him originally, and which was so gradually and imperceptibly, and yet so surely, wearing away. But that seemed to be impossible. When he was first assisted to bed he was in a sufficiently drowsy state, partly from the fatigue of the day, partly from the effect of the wine, of which the doctors insisted on his taking a quantity which would have been nothing to an ordinary man, but was much to one feeble in frame, and unable to take any exercise to carry off its strength. Then, after a short slumber--heavy, stertorous, and disturbed--he would wake, bright and staring, without the smallest sign of sleep in his head or in his eye. In vain would he toss from side to side, and try all the known recipes for somnolence--none were of the slightest avail. He could not sleep, he could not compose himself in the least degree, he could not empty his mind as it were; and the mind must be, or at all events must seem, empty before sleep will take possession of it. Lord Caterham's mind in the dead silence of the night was even more active than it was in the daytime. Before him rose up all the difficulties which he had to surmount, the dangers which he had to avoid, the hopes and fears and triumphs and vexations which made up the sum of his bitter life. They were not many now,--they never had been diffuse at any time; so little had Caterham been a citizen of the world, that all his aspirations had lain within a very small compass, and now they centred in one person--Annie Maurice. To provide for her safety when he was not there to look after it in person; to leave such records as would show what action he had taken in her behalf, and on what grounds that action had been undertaken; to arm some competent and willing person so thoroughly to bestir himself at the necessary juncture as to prevent the chance of the conspiracy against Annie's future being carried into effect:--these were the night-thoughts which haunted Caterham's couch, and rendered him sleepless.