Looking at my watch, I saw that it was now midnight, so I took up a candle and, lighting it at the fire, suggested sleepily that we should go to bed. Gabriel rose, and ascended the staircase at my side. The fagots in the bedroom had burnt low: only a dim red gleam was mirrored on the panelling of the landing and on the glossy door of a clock, above whose dial a curious arrangement showed the waxing and waning of the moon. Our chamber was large, and apparently was over the supper-room. No carpet covered the worm-eaten floor; but a few discoloured skin rugs, irregularly shapen, lay about, chiefly round the cedar bedstead in the middle, whereon a volant angel, blowing a gilt bugle, leaned from the top of every post. I threw logs on the hearth, and while Gabriel undressed I lay on a couch from one of the recesses in the wall. As I rested, hot tears ran down my cheeks. Gabriel drew aside the bed-curtains. I sprang to his side and took his hands. ‘Stay,’ I said gravely; ‘you have not said your prayers.’ He laughed blithely. ‘I never say them,’ he replied. I did not relax my hold. ‘For God’s sake,’ I muttered, ‘say them to-night of all nights.’ His mirth died quickly: ‘If you will sleep better with the knowledge, I will say them;’ and he began to pray with a surprising beauty. I said _Amen_ when all was done. In less than ten minutes he was fast asleep. For me, I sat listening to the deathwatch sound in the region of my heart; the nearly silent drip-dropping of blood from the vessel, now well-nigh exhausted, whose emptiness means freedom. Its ticking alternated with the clock’s, and each one brought a separate vision to my fancy--visions that I had thought ripped from my heart years ago. Visions of Lenore! O damned miniature! But Gabriel’s breathing soothed me. Once he murmured: ‘Friend!’ The gleaming of the hangings startled me. Some dull metal was interwoven with the wool, so that, as the light rose and fell, figures sprang from the folds and leaped down chasms, eyes gleamed and dimmed, arms were uplifted and struck. Soon, in my curiosity, I began to consider the chief subject, and was amazed to find it that scene in _Tamburlane_, where Bajazeth and Zabina lie with their brains dashed out. It was wrought on the side nearest the fire, and on the other (which I saw by candlelight) was an uncouth picture of the tent of Heber the Kenite, with Jael in act to use the lethal hammer. Suicide and murder, each grimly figured--suicide and murder: here were strange subjects for a temple of rest! Yet Gabriel’s dreams were happy. Often during my vigil I drew the curtain, and laid my hand tenderly on his forehead, and watched the lines of care fade out and away. As the night passed, he seemed to realise my presence: so, not wishing to break his rest, I was content to listen to the rise and fall of his breath.