"I think I'll have the '64," he said, pouring out a glass and swallowing it with all the gusto of a man whose chief delight was the satisfaction of his stomach.
I took a cigarette from the big silver box he handed me, and I stretched out my hand for the matches.... Beyond that, curiously enough, I recollect nothing else.
But stay! Yes, I do.
I remember seeing, as though rising from out a hazy grey mist, a woman's face—the countenance of a very pretty girl, about eighteen, with big blue wide-open eyes and very fair silky hair—a girl, whose eyes bore in them a hideous look of inexpressible horror.
Next instant the blackness of unconsciousness fell upon me.
When I recovered I was amazed to find myself in bed, with the yellow wintry sunlight streaming into the low, old-fashioned room. For some time—how long I know not—I lay there staring at the diamond-paned window straight before me, vaguely wondering what had occurred.
A sound at last struck the right chord of my memory—the sound of my host's voice exclaiming cheerily:
"How do you feel, old chap? Better, I hope, after your long sleep. Do you know it's nearly two o'clock in the afternoon?"
Two o'clock!