My curiosity was at length relieved; a rude folding-door opened opposite, and showed a low dim sitting-room beyond, from which there rose a few steps to the entrance of my chamber. On these appeared, not, alas! the fancied visitant who was to flit about my bedside, and mix her bright presence with my dreams, but stately and severe, with a pale cheek and compressed lip, her father--my aversion. I lay silent, sick at the thoughts of my own meanness in his eyes; while he advanced, shading the light of the candle from my face, and in a low cold tone, asked if I desired anything? I shall never forget him as he stood, the light thrown full upon his strong features and broad chest, and shining purple through the fingers of his large hand. "I asked, sir, did you require any assistance?" he repeated. "Are you in pain?" he went on. I now replied that my chief pain was caused by my own unworthy appearance; made a confused apology for my misconduct, and offered my acknowledgments for the protection I had received. "You have saved the life of my child," he said, turning slightly from me, "and protection is a debt which must be paid; for your follower, he must thank the same circumstance for what little life his own mad conduct has left him." Without another word, he took a phial from the table, and, pouring out a draught, handed it to me; I mechanically drunk it off; but ere I had taken it from my lips, he was gone. I heard the doors close and the bolts shoot after him with strange forebodings; and when the sound of his footsteps had died away in the long passage beyond, fell back in a wild maze of apprehension and self-censure, till I again sank into a heavy sleep.