"He needed it," reflected the student, "and perhaps it came only just in
time!"
Perhaps so; for outside the bitter wind from across the Forth howled
cruelly and drove the rain in cold streams against the window-panes, and
down the deserted streets. Long before Marriott settled down again
properly to his reading, he heard distantly, as it were, through the
sentences of the book, the heavy, deep breathing of the sleeper in the
next room.
A couple of hours later, when he yawned and changed his books, he still
heard the breathing, and went cautiously up to the door to look round.
At first the darkness of the room must have deceived him, or else his
eyes were confused and dazzled by the recent glare of the reading lamp.
For a minute or two he could make out nothing at all but dark lumps of
furniture, the mass of the chest of drawers by the wall, and the white
patch where his bath stood in the centre of the floor.
Then the bed came slowly into view. And on it he saw the outline of the
sleeping body gradually take shape before his eyes, growing up strangely
into the darkness, till it stood out in marked relief--the long black
form against the white counterpane.
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