The man only came in to say that Mrs. Renton and the young lady
had gone out for the evening, but that tea was laid for him in the
dining-room. He did not want any tea, and if anybody called, he was
not at home. With this charge, the man left the room, closing the door
behind him.
If he could but sleep a little! Rising from the sofa he turned the lights
of the chandelier low, and screened the fire. The room was still. The
ghost stood, faintly radiant, in a remote corner. Dr. Renton lay down
again, but not to repose. Things he had forgotten of his dead friend,
now started up again in remembrance, fresh from the grave of many years;
and not one of them but linked itself by some mysterious bond to
something connected with his tenant, and became an accusation.
He had lain thus for more than an hour, feeling more and more unmanned
by illness, and his mental excitement fast becoming intolerable, when
he heard a low strain of music, from the Swedenborgian chapel, hard
by. Its first impression was one of solemnity and rest, and its first
sense, in his mind, was of relief.
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