If Matthew had expected a flash of lightning, the apparition of the Evil One, the jubilations of triumphant fiends on the success of his experiment, he was agreeably disappointed. Nothing of the kind happened. Only in the dim light of the candle he saw a grey shadow of weary age steal over his pupil’s face, and he felt the vigour and vitality of youth invade his own limbs as with the intoxication of wine. Then the wick suddenly flickered in the candle-socket and went out. He heard Marmaduke turn over in his bed with an uneasy sigh. Then Makepeace woke to reason and a horrible dread. He dared not relight the candle for fear of rousing the sleeper. In the dark, before he was discovered, he must repeat the process which should restore each to his own person. In the dark, as nearly as he could, he went through the magical passes, and with extraordinary vehemence he willed himself back into Matthew Makepeace. But the word! Great heavens! It had passed from him as suddenly and completely as the light of the extinguished candle. In vain he racked his memory of every language, living or dead. It had no meaning in any language, living or dead: of that he felt sure, and he was sure of nothing else. For an hour, by his pupil’s bedside, he tore his hair in desperate efforts to recall it. For an hour he alternately cursed Commagenus and prayed that he might return before day to give him the forgotten word. Then the grey morning light began to creep through the casement, and the birds woke and sang. There could be no shadow of doubt about it. There lay Matthew Makepeace before him, and the old man was drowsily stirring his limbs as the light broadened into day. And young Dacre, in a doctor’s gown, was looking down upon him, tortured with horrible thoughts. One thing was certain. He could never pass himself off as Marmaduke. Conscience, gratitude, affection forbade it. Besides, the thing was impossible. He, the torpid pedant, could never play the part of the young and chivalrous heir of the Dacres: and there would be Marmaduke to convict the imposture. Before his pupil woke, before the discovery was made, he must disappear from Cambridge. Quietly and in haste he took down his pupil’s clothes from the closet where they hung, and exchanged for them his doctor’s robes. Then he descended his stairs and stepped out into the cool shadows of the August morning. The porter was just opening the gate. He nodded familiarly to young Dacre as he passed. That was the last which any soul in Jesus College saw of Matthew Makepeace. Unless, indeed, it were that same Matthew Makepeace who, with the homing instinct of a dying animal, crept back to Cambridge in poverty and wretchedness, and died in widow Pearson’s house in 1654. In any case the flagstone in the chapel transept told a lie: it was Marmaduke Dacre that lay beneath it.