midday
I sank into bed as into a cloud and Therese reappeared very misty and offering me something in a cup . I believe it was hot milk , and after I drank it she took the cup and stood looking at me fixedly . I managed to say with difficulty : `` Go away , '' whereupon she vanished as if by magic before the words were fairly out of my mouth . Immediately afterwards the sunlight forced through the slats of the jalousies its diffused glow , and Therese was there again as if by magic , saying in a distant voice : `` It 's midday '' ... Youth will have its rights . I had slept like a stone for seventeen hours . I suppose an honourable bankrupt would know such an awakening : the sense of catastrophe , the shrinking from the necessity of beginning life again , the faint feeling that there are misfortunes which must be paid for by a hanging . In the course of the morning Therese informed me that the apartment usually occupied by Mr. Blunt was vacant and added mysteriously that she intended to keep it vacant for a time , because she had been instructed to do so .