A sudden change was upon him, absorbing him so that he did not even try to account for it: something seemed to give way in his head--as if a bubble burst in his brain; and from that moment whatever the earl said, and whatever arose in his own mind, seemed to have outward existence as well.

He heard and knew the voice of his host, but seemed also in some inexplicable way, which at the time occasioned him no surprise, to see the things which had their origin in the brain of the earl.

Whether he went in very deed out with him into the night, he did not know--he felt as if he had gone, and thought he had not--but when he woke the next morning in his bed at the top of the tower, which he had no recollection of climbing, he was as weary as if he had been walking the night through..