“It is none of my business,” said Randolph; “and I don’t know where he is,” he added, looking round him once more. He might be here already in the dark, waiting till the breath was out of his father’s body--waiting to seize possession of the house, felon as he was. And if Randolph was the means of betraying him into the hands of justice, what would everybody say? He went abruptly away down the uncarpeted, polished stairs, on which his hasty step rang and slid. John, always John! he seemed to be in the air. Even Eastwood, when he attended him with his bed-candle, could not refrain from adding a word. “The doctor looks very serious, sir,” Eastwood said; “and if there’s any telegraph to be sent, I’ll keep the groom ready to go at a moment’s notice. ‘It would be well to send for all friends,’ the doctor said.” “I don’t know any one to send for,” said Randolph peremptorily; “let the groom go to bed.” And he went to bed himself sooner than usual, to get rid of these appeals and of equally imperative thoughts. He went to bed, but he could not go to sleep, and kept his candle burning half the night. He heard the watchers moving about in his father’s room, which was over-head, all the night through. Sometimes there would be a little rush of steps, and then he held his breath, thinking this might be at last the “change” which was looked for. But then everything grew still again, and he dozed, with the one poor candle, feeble but steadfast watcher, burning on till it became a pale intruder into the full glory of day. Randolph, however, slept deeply in the morning, and got up with the greater part of those cobwebs blown away. John lost his hold upon the imagination in daylight, and he was able to laugh at his foolish alarm. How could it be John whom he had seen? He durst not show himself in the country where still his crime was so well remembered, and the sentence out against him. And as for the appearance being anything more than mortal, or less than human, Randolph laughed at the state of his own nerves which rendered such an idea tenable for a moment. He was a materialist by nature--as so many are; though he said his creed without any intrusive doubts; and the absurdity was too patent after he had slept and been refreshed. But no doubt it was bad for his health, bad for his _morale_, to stay here. There was something in the atmosphere that was demoralizing; the air had a creeping sensation in it as of something more than met the eye. Death was in it; death, creeping on slowly, silently--loitering about with faint odours of mortality and sickening stillness. Randolph felt that he must escape into a more natural and wholesome air before further harm was done.