The window in his own room was open, and the smell of tropical plants (especially the magnolia, with its sleep-inducing odour) was coming up from the garden. He remembered that his own father had brought them from the East long ago, when he was himself a boy. The sky was dark, but the hidden moon broke through silvery clouds for a moment, and, looking through the surrounding blackness, he saw the bald crown of Snaefell, far beyond the trees and above the glen. He remembered that he had seen it so all the way up since he was a child. He closed the curtains slowly and taking his candle again he walked around the room and looked long at the pictures on the walls. They were chiefly portraits or miniatures of Victor, at various periods of childhood and youth--the latest being a photograph sent home to him from abroad. That was the last oscillation of the pendulum. When he was about to prepare for bed he found his strength exhausted, and he was compelled to sit several times while he undressed. But he continued to smile, and when he lay down at length and put his head on the-pillow he did it with a will. Then he closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath, as one who has gone through a long day's labour but has seen it finish up well at the end. And then he closed his eyes and the surge of sleep passed over him. Outside the house everything seemed to slumber. It was a night strangely calm and dark. The tall elms stood like soundless sentinels in the darkness. Not a leaf stirred. The rivers flowed without noise, as if a supernatural hand had been laid on them to silence them. The only sound was the slow boom of the sea, which seemed to come up out of the ground and to be the pulse of the earth itself. The deep mystery of night was over all. Towards morning there was a faint waft of wind in the trees and along the grass. Was it the movement in the earth's bosom of the new day about to be born? Or some invisible presence striding along with noiseless footsteps? Within the house everything seemed to sleep. But the Deemster lay dead. III "Mr. Victor, Sir! Mr. Victor!" It was Robbie Creer, who, after knocking in vain at Stowell's door in the grey hours of morning, was shouting up at his window. He had driven into town in the dog-cart and the little mare was steaming with perspiration. Stowell threw up the window and heard the dread news. After a moment he answered, in a voice that sounded strange in Robbie's ears: "Wait for me. I will go back with you." When he was ready to go he wrote a message to Fenella, and left it for Mrs. Quayle to send off as soon as the telegraph office opened: "_He has gone, heaven, forgive me. I am going home now._"