The clock struck eight, and Mr. Topsparkle stretched himself and rubbed his eyes. However late were his revels over-night, he invariably awoke at this hour. It was his habit to lounge in bed for an hour or two after that awakening, while the day was airing; but his slumbers were generally over with the stroke of eight. His first glance was at the fire, to see that his slaves had not neglected him, for the nights were chilly. Gazing dreamily at the burning logs and sea-coal, straight in front of him, Mr. Topsparkle was unconscious of that small slender figure beside the hearth, almost hidden by the side-pieces of the easy-chair. But as consciousness became keener in the newly awakened senses, as the passage from dreams to waking became complete, Mr. Topsparkle's instinct told him that he was not alone. He looked round the room nervously, saw that figure in the chair, the ghastly face covered with pustules, and gave a shriek of absolute terror. "'Tis a ghost," he muttered, after the first shock, "Fétis's ghost!" "'Tis stern reality, Vyvyan Topsparkle, 'tis the pestilence that walketh at noonday. You sent me to an infected den, of malice aforethought, planned to trap me like a rat; sent me to die and rot there, lest this tongue of mine should tell how you tempted me to give your mistress her last sleeping draught when you were alike weary of her charms and doubtful of her fidelity. You meant to make a swift end of a foolish babbler whose awakened conscience threatened your safety. But 'twas not so easy as you thought. I have brought contagion to your own couch, the venom of virulent smallpox has poisoned your pillow. I lay for an hour upon your bed last night before you came to it. Your down coverlet is tainted by my breath, your satin and velvet are reeking with infection. I slept beside you all night. 'Twill be a miracle if you escape the disease." "You are a maniac," cried Topsparkle, "a malignant maniac; and I will have you clapped in a strait-waistcoat before this world is an hour older." He lifted his arm to ring for aid, but the bell-pull had been plucked down by Fétis over-night. "You have trapped me once," said the valet. "You shall not catch me so easily again. If I am to die, it shall be in my own hole, not in a trap of your choosing." He opened the door and was gone before Mr. Topsparkle, helpless in the elegant disorder of his night raiment, could attempt to detain him. He fled with swift footsteps from the house which had been the scene of murder forty years ago, and which had been hateful to this cowardly sinner ever since. Topsparkle was a bolder villain, and was not open to such influences. * * * * * A week later, everybody at the Court end of London was talking of poor Mr. Topsparkle, who was stricken with smallpox, a malady which at his age was likely to be fatal, despite the assiduous attendance of fashionable physicians, learned in the latest treatment of this terrible disease.