"You can undress here," he said. "The sheets are aired, and if you'll
wait a moment I'll fetch a nightshirt--one of my own."
"Sir, you heap coals of fire on me."
"Believe me that for ninety-nine of your qualities I do not care a
tinker's curse: but as a man who, after three tumblers of neat brandy,
can tell Marsala from Madeira you are to be taken care of."
He shuffled away, but came back in a couple of minutes with the
nightshirt.
"Good-night," he called to me, flinging it in at the door; and without
giving me time to return the wish, went his way upstairs.
Now it might be supposed that I was only too glad to toss off my
clothes and climb into the bed I had so unexpectedly acquired a right
to. But, as a matter of fact, I did nothing of the kind. Instead, I
drew on my boots and sat on the bed's edge, blinking at my candle till
it died down in its socket, and afterwards at the purple square of
window as it slowly changed to gray with the coming of dawn. I was
cold to the heart, and my teeth chattered with an ague. Certainly I
never suspected my host's word; but was even occupied in framing good
resolutions and shaping out an excellent future, when I heard the
front door gently pulled to, and a man's footsteps moving quietly to
the gate.
The treachery knocked me in a heap for the moment.
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