The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

TALES OF CONSCIENCE

The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions,
had several large chambers communicating with each
other, where slept the greater number of the students.
There were, however, (as must necessarily happen in
a building so awkwardly planned) many little nooks
or recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and
these the economic ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also
fitted up as dormitories; although, being the merest
closets, they were capable of accommodating but a
single individual. One of these small apartments was
occupied by Wilson.
One night, about the close of my fifth year at the
school, and immediately after the altercation just mbntioned, finding every one wrapped in sleep, I arose
from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole through a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to that
of my rival. I had long been plotting one of those illnatured pieces of practical wit at his expense in which
I had hitherto been so uniformly unsuccessful. It
was my intention, now, to put my scheme in operation,
and I resolved to make him feel the whole extent of
the malice with which I was imbued. Having reached
his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving the lamp,
with a shade over it, on the outside. I advanced a
step, and listened to the sound of his tranquil breathing. Assured of his being asleep, I returned, took the
light, and with it again approached the bed. Close
curtains were around it, which, in the prosecution of
my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew, when the
bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes
at the same moment upon his countenance. I looked,
-and a numbness, an iciness of feeling, instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved, my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an
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