and this was the fifth day that the sleeper had lain in a heavy stupor.  Dr. Hartwell put back the hand he held, and, stooping over, looked long and anxiously at the flushed face.  The breathing was deep and labored, and, turning away, he slowly and noiselessly walked up and down the floor.  To have looked at him then, in his purple silk robe de chambre, one would have scarcely believed that thirty years had passed over his head.  He was tall and broad-chested, his head massive and well formed, his face a curious study.  The brow was expansive and almost transparent in its purity, the dark, hazel eyes were singularly brilliant, while the contour of lips and chin was partially concealed by a heavy mustache and board.  The first glance at his face impressed strangers by its extreme pallor, but in a second look they were fascinated by the misty splendor of the eyes.  In truth, those were strange eyes of Guy Hartwell’s.  At times, searching and glittering like polished steel; occasionally lighting up with a dazzling radiance, and then as suddenly growing gentle, hazy, yet luminous; resembling the clouded aspect of a star seen through a thin veil of mist.  His brown, curling hair was thrown back from the face, and exposed the outline of the ample forehead.  Perhaps utilitarians would have carped at the feminine delicacy of the hands, and certainly the fingers were slender and marvelously white.  On one hand he wore an antique ring, composed of a cameo snake-head set round with diamonds.  A proud, gifted, and miserable man was Guy Hartwell, and his characteristic expression of stern sadness might easily have been mistaken by casual observers for bitter misanthropy.

I have said he was about thirty, and though the handsome face was repellently cold and grave, it was difficult to believe that that smooth, fair brow had been for so many years uplifted for the handwriting of time.  He looked just what he was, a baffling, fascinating mystery.  You felt that his countenance was a volume of hieroglyphics which, could you decipher, would unfold the history of a checkered and painful career.  Yet the calm, frigid smile which sat on his lip, and looked out defiantly from his deep-set eyes, seemed to dare you to an investigation.  Mere physical beauty cannot impart the indescribable charm which his countenance possessed.  Regularity of features is a valuable auxiliary, but we look on sculptured marble, perfect in its chiseled proportions, and feel that, after all, the potent spell is in the raying out of the soul, that imprisoned radiance which, in some instances, makes man indeed but “little lower than the angels.”  He paused in his echoless tread, and sat down once more beside his protegee.  She had not changed her position, and the long lashes lay heavily on the crimson cheeks.  The parched lips were parted, and, as he watched her, she murmured aloud: 

“It is so sweet, Lilly; we will stay here always.”  A shadowy smile crossed her face, and then a great agony seemed to possess her, for she moaned long and bitterly.  He tried to arouse her, and, for the first time since the night she entered his house, she opened her eyes and gazed vacantly at him.