CHAPTER XIX IN WHICH I BECOME A SQUIRE OF DAMES
Who does not recognize the solemn majesty of Night—that season of awesome stillness when tired mankind lies supine in that strange inertia so like death; when the soul, quitting the wearied body for a space, flies hence—but whither?
What wonder is it if, at such an hour as this, we are prone to magnify trifles, or that the most insignificant thing becomes an omen full of ghastly meaning and possibilities? The creak of a door in the silence, a rustle in the dark, become to us of infinitely greater moment than the crash of falling empires.
Thus, for a space, I lay, with ears on the stretch, and every nerve tingling, waiting for—I knew not what.
In a little, I became conscious of yet another sound, indescribably desolate: the low, repress
