Though there was a strong coercion to wakefulness in the propinquity of that spirit of unrest which possessed his enemy so close at hand, his eyes once grew heavy-lidded and opened with a sudden start as, half dreaming, he fancied a stealthy approach. He sprang from the recumbent posture, and the floor creaked under the abrupt movement. This gave him pause, and he slowly collected his faculties. Surely the stranger would hardly venture, even under the relentless scourge of his own wakeful thoughts, to roam about the house in search of peace or the surcease of mental tyranny that change might effect. This might savor of disrespect to his host, yet Julius canvassed the suggestion. These were untoward times, and strange people were queerly mannered. The officer must have learned in the length of his residence here that the great vacant attic was untenanted wholly, and of course he knew that the ground floor was altogether unoccupied by night. He might descend and light the library lamp and read. He might indeed roam the deserted rooms with the same sort of satisfaction that Julius himself had already felt in the great spaces, the absolute quiet, the still moonlight, the long abeyance of day with its procrastination of the sordid problems and the toilsome business of life. If he had chanced to meet the Rebel on the stairs, he would scarcely have thought the apparition a spectral manifestation, as the poor little twins had construed the encounter in the library, for old Janus, trembling and terrified, had detailed the significance of the scene in the dining room afterward, and the eagerness of Julius to get away, to be off, had been redoubled. Daily he had hoped for news of the approach of the picket-lines, and daily the old servant wrung his hands and made his report, of which the burden was, "Wuss an' wuss!"--or detailed a "scrimmage" in which "dem scand'lous Rebs had run like tuckies, an' deir line is furder off dan it eber was afore!"