CHAPTER XXII.
POOR PLINY!
HE surliness of that November night broke into dazzling sunlight the next morning, and the sun was nearly two hours high when Pliny Hastings rolled himself heavily over in bed, uttered a deep groan, and awoke to the wretchedness of a new day of shame and misery and self-loathing.
For he loathed himself, this poor young man born and reared in the very hotbed of temptation, struggling to break the chain that he had but recently discovered was bound around him, making resolutions many and strong, and gradually awakening to the knowledge that resolutions were flimsy as paper threads compared with the iron bands with which his tyrant held him. After the groan, he opened his eyes, and staring about him in a bewildered way, tried to take in his unfamiliar surroundings.
"Where in the name of wonders am I now?" he said at last and aloud. Whereupon Theodore came to the bedside and said, "Good-morning, Pliny."
"What the mischief!" began Pliny, then he stopped; and as memory came to his aid, added a short, sharp, "Oh!" and relapsed into silence.