It is very seldom I cannot sleep, but I could not that night.

There was something in the intense quiet and repose of the great house, after all the excitement of the last few hours, that oppressed me.

Everything seemed, as I lay awake, so unnaturally silent.

There was not a sound in the wide grate, where the last ashes of the fire were silently giving up the ghost, not a rumble of wind in the old chimney which had had so much to say the night before.

I tossed and turned, and vainly sought for sleep, now on this side, now on that.