Ah, so Nevill had sent him those promised books. They were all new to him, He would look through them. They might make him sleepy. No doubt, if they contained any such absurdities as Nevill had told him, they would amuse him or put him to sleep. He wished he could go to sleep. Half-a-dozen books lay on the dressing-table. He turned them over for a few minutes and then selected one. It was full of diagrams and other drawings. He amused himself for a few minutes looking at these. His eye caught the word 'love.' This was apropos of his condition; and, with a smile of incredulous wonder on his face, he turned to read what the author had to say on the subject. Before he had read half-a-dozen pages he threw the book down with contempt. He took up another. This proved too technical for him. He could not understand what he read. He put that away quietly. Next he found a cheerful-looking book of which he had heard, but never seen. It was in the line of natural history, and yet unlike any natural history hitherto published. He opened it and began to read. It interested him at once. He read rapidly. He flew over the pages. This was the most remarkable book which had ever fallen into his hands. He became wholly absorbed in it. He turned the leaves and turned the leaves as though he were looking for some marked passage, not reading the printed words. This book fascinated him as no book had had power to do before. It was a poem of facts. Here were wonders he had never dreamed of paraded before his eyes, not out of the imagination of a poet, but out of God's great storehouse, Nature. Here were vast truths of Nature brought home to the everyday pathways of men. His face grew pale, and his eyes blazed. He did not hear the clocks strike. He took no heed of time. He rushed through the book at so great a rate, he could not pause to think or to regard himself. It was close to five o'clock when he finished the last chapter of that book. He felt that sleep had drawn further off than ever. Again he paced up and down the room. His love. His Mary. His wife that was to be. Close to five only! Would night never pass until he should see her again? In love hours seemed as long as in childhood. The hour a child is kept in school when the others have gone seems an hour of infinite pleasant possibilities to the unfortunate prisoner. The hour a lover is separated from his newly-won mistress seems more spacious still, for love crowds more joy into a minute than childhood into an hour. No sleep. No rest. Nothing else to read. Yes. Another book. Another book by the same author too! That was fortunate. No doubt it would be more interesting than the last. It dealt with a more interesting subject--Man. For half-an-hour he read here and there. This time, before he had finished the first chapter, his face had flushed, his manner become excited. At last he let the book fall to the ground, and cried, in a suppressed voice,--