As Clive lay awake revolving¹ the strange incidents of the day, and speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to take a certain part, a sure presentiment⁴ told him that his own happy holiday was come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had always somehow foreboded, were about to break and obscure this brief pleasant period of sunshine. He rose at a very early hour, flung his windows open, looked out no doubt towards those other windows in the neighbouring hotel, where he may have fancied he saw a curtain stirring, drawn⁵ by a hand that every hour now he longed more to press. He turned back into his chamber⁶ with a sort of groan⁷, and surveyed some of the relics⁸ of the last night’s little feast, which still remained on the table. There were the champagne-flasks which poor Jack⁹ Belsize had emptied, the tall seltzer-water bottle, from which the gases had issued and mingled¹⁰ with the hot air of the previous night’s talk; glasses with dregs of liquor, ashes of cigars, or their black stumps¹¹, strewing¹² the cloth; the dead men, the burst guns of yesterday’s battle. Early as it was, his neighbour J. J had been up before him. Clive could hear him singing as was his wont¹³ when the pencil went well, and the colours arranged themselves to his satisfaction over his peaceful and happy work.

He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his board and colour-box, filled a great glass from the seltzer-water bottle, drank some of the

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