Over the floor was spread a deep layer of dust, that reached half way up to the window-seat.  It had grown immeasurably, whilst I slept; and represented the dust of untold ages.  Undoubtedly, atoms of the old, decayed furniture helped to swell its bulk; and, somewhere among it all, mouldered the long-ago-dead Pepper.

All at once, it occurred to me, that I had no recollection of wading knee-deep through all that dust, after I awoke.  True, an incredible age of years had passed, since I approached the window; but that was evidently as nothing, compared with the countless spaces of time that, I conceived, had vanished whilst I was sleeping.  I remembered now, that I had fallen asleep, sitting in my old chair.  Had it gone ...?  I glanced toward where it had stood.  Of course, there was no chair to be seen.  I could not satisfy myself, whether it had disappeared, after my waking, or before.  If it had mouldered under me, surely, I should have been waked by the collapse.  Then I remembered that the thick dust, which covered the floor, would have been sufficient to soften my fall; so that it was quite possible, I had slept upon the dust for a million years or more.

As these thoughts wandered through my brain, I glanced again, casually, to where the chair had stood.  Then, for the first time, I noticed that there were no marks, in the dust, of my footprints, between it and the window.  But then, ages of years had passed, since I had awaked—­tens of thousands of years!

My look rested thoughtfully, again upon the place where once had stood my chair.  Suddenly, I passed from abstraction to intentness; for there, in its standing place, I made out a long undulation, rounded off with the heavy dust.  Yet it was not so much hidden, but that I could tell what had caused it.  I knew—­and shivered at the knowledge—­that it was a human body, ages-dead, lying there, beneath the place where I had slept.  It was lying on its right side, its back turned toward me.  I could make out and trace each curve and outline, softened, and moulded, as it were, in the black dust.  In a vague sort of way, I tried to account for its presence there.  Slowly, I began to grow bewildered, as the thought came to me that it lay just about where I must have fallen when the chair collapsed.

Gradually, an idea began to form itself within my brain; a thought that shook my spirit.  It seemed hideous and insupportable; yet it grew upon me, steadily, until it became a conviction.  The body under that coating, that shroud of dust, was neither more nor less than my own dead shell.  I did not attempt to prove it.  I knew it now, and wondered I had not known it all along.  I was a bodiless thing.

Awhile, I stood, trying to adjust my thoughts to this new problem.  In time—­how many thousands of years, I know not—­I attained to some degree of quietude—­sufficient to enable me to pay attention to what was transpiring around me.

Now, I saw that the elongated mound had sunk, collapsed, level with the rest of the spreading dust.  And fresh atoms, impalpable, had settled above that mixture of grave-powder, which the aeons had ground.  A long while, I stood, turned from the window.  Gradually, I grew more collected, while the world slipped across the centuries into the future.