I felt my senses rock at the recollection; and then I went hot all over with shame, to think of my neglect, my inattention. Until that moment--despite his dying direction, I had utterly forgotten his sad trust. And the thing he had given me to keep--where was it now? Where, indeed, but in the pocket of that coat where I had placed it. Oh! It was safe enough, no doubt--but that did not absolve me. For weeks I had been a recreant trustee. I had, I saw it now, I had been a coward. I felt his death so much that I had resolutely put all thoughts of him aside, smothered them with work, fearing the misery which they must bring. And I had been his friend! I took up the coat and felt in the pocket. Yes, it was there. What was it? I drew it out before the light and saw nothing! Yet I held something heavy and hard. Was I going mad? Was my sight diseased or what? I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Nothing! I strode over to the gas jet and held the thing between my visual organs and the flame. Ah! something now! But how describe it? I saw a small light blur; a sort of shapeless haze off which the rays, the jet of light diffused, recoiled obliquely. It was not transparent, but neither was it in the true sense visible. It seemed to defy the light rays, to repulse them rather than absorb them. When held directly before the flame I could not see the gas jet through it, and yet itself I could not truly see. It confused and disarranged my vision as a watery mote does floating on the surface of an eyeball. Slowly and surely experimenting with the thing, I found that the farther I withdrew it from the lamp the less sensibly my sense became aware of its existence. But when I placed it directly against the lamp the flame became mysteriously obscured. I say mysteriously, because the thing cast no discoverable shadow, and although solid to the sense of touch, it was not otherwise apparently opaque. The flame still burned behind it, and I still saw the flame, yet not through, but over and around an intermediate blur. In that connection the thing did not resemble glass. Had the reverse been the case I should have seen the flame through it directly. As it was, as far as I can make out, the impression of the flame was conveyed to my retina by rays of light that did not travel in a straight path. They climbed over and surrounded the interposed object first, and thus gave me a slightly distorted image of the flame; and instead of revealing the obstacle which they had to overcome in transit, all they did was to indicate vaguely its situation. Thus, above and below the indiscernible point where their straight and proper course was interfered with I perceived a misty, indefinable haze. And at the point where the rays seemed to reassemble and readjust themselves to the resumption of their ordinary business there was a blur. Perhaps the best way to depict the effect was to present the hypothesis of a weak flame held up before a stronger one.