It was by no means a dull journey this time.  The incessant changes of direction and variations in the character of the road kept me most uncommonly busy; for I had hardly time to scribble down one entry before the compass-needle would swing round sharply, showing that we had once more turned a corner; and I was quite taken by surprise when the carriage slowed down and turned into the covered way.  Very hastily I scribbled down the final entry ("9.24.  S.E.  In covered way"), and having closed the book and slipped it and the board into my pocket, had just opened out the newspaper when the carriage door was unlocked and opened, whereupon I unhooked and blew out the lamp and pocketed that too, reflecting that it might be useful later.

As on the last occasion, Mrs. Schallibaum stood in the open doorway with a lighted candle.  But she was a good deal less self-possessed this time.  In fact she looked rather wild and terrified.  Even by the candle-light I could see that she was very pale and she seemed unable to keep still.  As she gave me the few necessary words of explanation, she fidgeted incessantly and her hands and feet were in constant movement.

“You had better come up with me at once,” she said.  “Mr. Graves is much worse to-night.  We will wait not for Mr. Weiss.”

Without waiting for a reply she quickly ascended the stairs and I followed.  The room was in much the same condition as before.  But the patient was not.  As soon as I entered the room, a soft, rhythmical gurgle from the bed gave me a very clear warning of danger.  I stepped forward quickly and looked down at the prostrate figure, and the warning gathered emphasis.  The sick man’s ghastly face was yet more ghastly; his eyes were more sunken, his skin more livid; “his nose was as sharp as a pen,” and if he did not “babble of green fields” it was because he seemed to be beyond even that.  If it had been a case of disease, I should have said at once that he was dying.  He had all the appearance of a man in articulo mortis.  Even as it was, feeling convinced that the case was one of morphine poisoning, I was far from confident that I should be able to draw him back from the extreme edge of vitality on which he trembled so insecurely.

“He is very ill?  He is dying?”

It was Mrs. Schallibaum’s voice; very low, but eager and intense.  I turned, with my finger on the patient’s wrist, and looked into the face of the most thoroughly scared woman I have ever seen.  She made no attempt now to avoid the light, but looked me squarely in the face, and I noticed, half-unconsciously, that her eyes were brown and had a curious strained expression.

“Yes,” I answered, “he is very ill.  He is in great danger.”

She still stared at me fixedly for some seconds.  And then a very odd thing occurred.  Suddenly she squinted—­squinted horribly; not with the familiar convergent squint which burlesque artists imitate, but with external or divergent squint of extreme near sight or unequal vision.  The effect was quite startling.  One moment both her eyes were looking straight into mine; the next, one of them rolled round until it looked out of the uttermost corner, leaving the other gazing steadily forward.