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“Do me the favour to remember that you came, and are staying, on your own motion. As for the brandy, I would remind you that I suggested a milder drink. Try some Madeira.”

He handed me the decanter, as he spoke, and I poured out a glass.

“Madeira!” said I, taking a gulp, “Ugh! it’s the commonest Marsala!”

I had no sooner said the words than he rose up, and stretched a hand gravely across to me.

“I hope you will shake it,” he said; “though, as a man who after three glasses of neat spirit can distinguish between Madeira and Marsala, you have every right to refuse me. Two minutes ago you offered to become my butler, and I demurred. I now beg you to repeat that offer. Say the word, and I employ you gladly; you shall even have the second decanter (which contains genuine Madeira) to take to bed with you.”

We shook hands on our bargain, and catching up a candlestick, he led the way from the room.

Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down the silent staircase. In the hall he paused to stand on tip-toe, and turn up the lamp, which was burning low. As he did so, I found time to fling a glance at my old enemy, the mastiff. He lay as I had first seen him– a stuffed dog, if ever there was one. “Decidedly,” thought I, “my wits are to seek to-night;” and with the same, a sudden suspicion made me turn to my conductor, who had advanced to the left-hand door, and was waiting for me, with a hand on the knob.

“One moment!” I said: “This is all very pretty, but how am I to know you’re not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside to lay me by the heels?”

“I’m afraid,” was his answer, “you must be content with my word, as a gentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a syllable about the circumstances of your visit. However, if you choose, we will return up-stairs.”

“No; I’ll trust you,” said I; and he opened the door.

It led into a broad passage paved with slate, upon which three or four rooms opened. He paused by the second and ushered me into a sleeping-chamber, which, though narrow, was comfortable enough–a vast improvement, at any rate, on the mumpers’ lodgings I had been used to for many months past.

“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 for your palate 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 up-stairs.

Now it might be supposed 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 grey 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 a reputable 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. Then, leaping up and flinging my door wide, I stumbled through the uncertain light of the passage into the front hall. There was a fan-shaped light over the door, and the place was very still and grey. A quick thought, or, rather, a sudden, prophetic guess at the truth, made me turn to the figure of the mastiff curled under the hall table.