I went to a cupboard which was in a corner of the room, his eyes following me as I moved.  It was full of clothing,—­garments which might have formed the stock-in-trade of a costumier whose speciality was providing costumes for masquerades.  A long dark cloak hung on a peg.  My hand moved towards it, apparently of its own volition.  I put it on, its ample folds falling to my feet.

’In the other cupboard you will find meat, and bread, and wine.  Eat and drink.’

On the opposite side of the room, near the head of his bed, there was a second cupboard.  In this, upon a shelf, I found what looked like pressed beef, several round cakes of what tasted like rye bread, and some thin, sour wine, in a straw-covered flask.  But I was in no mood to criticise; I crammed myself, I believe, like some famished wolf, he watching me, in silence, all the time.  When I had done, which was when I had eaten and drunk as much as I could hold, there returned to his face that satyr’s grin.

’I would that I could eat and drink like that,—­ah yes!—­Put back what is left.’  I put it back,—­which seemed an unnecessary exertion, there was so little to put.  ‘Look me in the face.’

I looked him in the face,—­and immediately became conscious, as I did so, that something was going from me,—­the capacity, as it were, to be myself.  His eyes grew larger and larger, till they seemed to fill all space—­till I became lost in their immensity.  He moved his hand, doing something to me, I know not what, as it passed through the air—­cutting the solid ground from underneath my feet, so that I fell headlong to the ground.  Where I fell, there I lay, like a log.

And the light went out.

CHAPTER IV

A LONELY VIGIL

I knew that the light went out.  For not the least singular, nor, indeed, the least distressing part of my condition was the fact that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I never once lost consciousness during the long hours which followed.  I was aware of the extinction of the lamp, and of the black darkness which ensued.  I heard a rustling sound, as if the man in the bed was settling himself between the sheets.  Then all was still.  And throughout that interminable night I remained, my brain awake, my body dead, waiting, watching, for the day.  What had happened to me I could not guess.  That I probably wore some of the external evidences of death my instinct told me,—­I knew I did.  Paradoxical though it may sound, I felt as a man might feel who had actually died,—­as, in moments of speculation, in the days gone by, I had imagined it as quite possible that he would feel.  It is very far from certain that feeling necessarily expires with what we call life.  I continually asked myself if I could be dead,—­the inquiry pressed itself on me with awful iteration.  Does the body die, and the brain—­the I, the ego—­still live on?  God only knows.  But, then! the agony of the thought.