For some hours past it had been with the greatest difficulty I could breathe at all, and now each attempt at so doing was attended with the most depressing spasmodic action of the chest.

But there was still another and very different source of disquietude, and one, indeed, whose harassing terrors had been the chief means of arousing me to exertion from my stupor on the mattress.

It arose from the demeanor of the dog.
I first observed an alteration in his conduct while rubbing in the phosphorus on the paper in my last attempt.

As I rubbed, he ran his nose against my hand with a slight snarl; but I was too greatly excited at the time to pay much attention to the circumstance.

Soon afterward, it will be remembered, I threw myself on the mattress, and fell into a species of lethargy.