“You will find,” said Challoner, “a full account of the affair in the last volume of the ’Museum Archives’;” then, noting the astonishment on my face at this amazing statement, he added:  “You see, Wharton, the ‘Museum Archives’ are, in a sense, a personal diary; my life has been wrapped up in the museum and I have associated all the actions of my life with the collection.  I think you will understand when you read it.  And now let us dismiss these recollections of a ruined life.  I have told you my story; I wanted you to hear it from my own lips, and you have heard it.  Now let us take a glass of wine and talk of something else.”

I looked at my watch and, finding it much later than I had supposed, rose to take my leave.

“I oughtn’t to have kept you up like this,” I said.  “You ought to have been in bed an hour ago.”

Challoner laughed his queer muffled laugh.  “Bed!” exclaimed he.  “I don’t go to bed nowadays.  Haven’t been able to lie down for the last fortnight.”

Of course he hadn’t.  I might have known that.  “Well,” I said, “at any rate, let me make you comfortable for the night before I go.  How do you generally manage?”

“I rig up a head-rest on the edge of the table, pull up the armchair, wrap myself in a rug and sleep leaning forward.  I’ll show you.  Just get down Owen’s ‘Comparative Anatomy’ and stack the volumes close to the edge of the table.  Then set up Parker’s ’Monograph on the Shoulder-girdle’ in a slanting position against them.  Fine book, that of Parker’s.  I enjoyed it immensely when it first came out and it makes a splendid head-rest.  I’ll go and get into my pajamas while you are arranging the things.”

He went off to his adjacent bedroom and I piled up the ponderous volumes on the table and drew up the armchair.  When he returned, I wrapped him in a couple of thick rugs and settled him in his chair.  He laid his arms on the massive monograph, rested his forehead on them and murmured cheerfully that he should now be quite comfortable until the morning.  I wished him “good-night” and walked slowly to the door, and as I held it open I stopped to look back at him.  He raised his head and gave me a farewell smile; a queer, ugly smile, but full of courage and a noble patience.  And so I left him.

Thereafter I called to see him every day and settled him to rest every night.  His disease made more rapid progress even than I had expected; but he was always bright and cheerful, never made any complaint and never again referred to his troubled past.

One afternoon I called a little later than usual, and when the housemaid opened the door I asked her how he was.

“He isn’t any better, sir,” she answered.  “He’s getting most awful fat, sir; about the head I mean.”

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“He’s in the dining-room, sir; I think he’s gone to sleep.”

I entered the room quietly and found him resting by the table.  He was wrapped up in his rugs and his head rested on his beloved monograph.  I walked up to him and spoke his name softly, but he did not rouse.  I leaned over him and listened, but no sound or movement of breathing was perceptible.  The housemaid was right.  He had gone to sleep; or, in his own phrase, he had passed out of the domain of sorrow.