"I demand a conjuring-trick," he said, "I know I shan't sleep at all, unless you have some charm for me. Good God, how can I sleep? And, after all, why should I want to? Isn't waking good enough?" Merivale paused; waking and sleeping seemed to him no more matters for concern than they seem to an animal which sleeps when it is sleepy, and wakes when its sleepiness has gone. "That is entirely for you to settle," he said. "If you want to sleep I can make you; if you don't, I shall go to sleep myself. I shall do that in any case," he added. Evelyn was already overwrought with the events of the day, and he spoke petulantly. "Oh, make me sleep, then!" he said. "There is to-morrow coming. I can do nothing to-night, so let's get it over." "Lie down, then," said the Hermit, "and look at me, look at my eyes, I mean." He sat down on the edge of Evelyn's bed, and spoke low and slow. "The wind is asleep," he said, "it sleeps among the trees of the forest, for the time of sleep has come, and everything sleeps, your love sleeps too. Lie still;" he said, as Evelyn moved, "the trees of the forest sleep; and their leaves sleep, and high in the branches the birds sleep. Everything sleeps, the tired even and the weary sleep, and those who are strong sleep, and those who are weak." Evelyn's eyelids quivered, shut a moment, then half-opened again. "The flowers sleep," said Merivale, "and the eyelids of their petals are closed, as your eyelids are closing. Sleep, the black soft wing, has shut over them, as the wings of birds shut over their heads. The earth sleeps, the very stones of her sleep; she will not stir till morning, or if she stirs it will be but to sleep again. The sad and the happy sleep, the very sea sleeps and is hushed, and the tides of the sea are asleep. Sleep, too," he said, slightly raising his voice, "sleep till they wake--sleep till I wake you." He waited a moment, but Evelyn's eyelids did not even quiver again. Then he blew out the light and left the room.