As the days went slowly by he strove mightily to adapt himself to the dreary, monotonous life which he was now leading. Roversmire had indeed been able to draw entertainment from his stores of knowledge, his vast experience, and his power of releasing his soul from his body whenever earthly things grew too irksome to him, but Adrian, having lived all his life in a frivolous world, had not a well-stored mind to draw upon, consequently being debarred by his strange position from his ordinary pleasures he did not know how to employ his time. Furthermore, the memory of his folly stung him sharply, and the forced inaction of the life of seclusion, to which he was now condemned, made his tortured soul writhe in its new dwelling-place with a hideous sense of impotence and weariness. Day by day the papers informed him of the progress which Philip Trevanna was making towards recovery, and the astonishment excited by his own strange disappearance, but he was powerless to come forward, explain the circumstances of the affair, and resume his place among his fellow-men. He had sinned in permitting his temper to lead him to so nearly kill a human being, and this was his punishment--this dreary life of forced inaction, of agonising remorse, and of terrible self-reproach. Truly he was paying dearly for the one mad act of his life, and to his mind the punishment appeared immeasurably severe to the magnitude of the crime. Had Philip Trevanna died, he would have accepted his terrible situation with sullen apathy, looking upon it as a fit reward for taking the life of a fellow-man, but seeing that his friend was recovering, that the crime was unpremeditated, and that Trevanna had provoked him beyond all powers of endurance, it seemed bitterly hard that he should have to pass an indefinite period in a constant state of torture. This unpleasant state of things was not rendered any more bearable by the presence of Dentham, who, Adrian knew, kept a constant watch upon his every action. What the man suspected he could not tell, but that he was suspicious of the life led by Dr. Michael Roversmire was certain, as Adrian felt rather than saw the stealthy glances with which he watched his goings out and comings in, gettings up and layings down. This, in itself, was enough to irritate a sensitive mind, but added to the appalling tortures the unhappy young man was constantly feeling, it drove him nearly to the verge of distraction, and he longed for something to happen which would give him, if not a release, at least change of life. At last an event happened which caused Adrian to make up his mind to leave his seclusion, and which also caused considerable anxiety to the enquiring mind of Mr. Dentham. One day, about two weeks after the transformation had taken place, Adrian saw in the paper a notice of a reward offered for the discovery of the whereabouts of Adrian Lancaster.