It did not terrify or madden him; he listened to it rapt
utterly as in some deadening ether of dream; yet feeling to his inmost
core all its powerful grief and accusation, and quietly aghast at the
sinister consciousness it gave him. Still it swelled, gathering and
sounding on into yet mightier pathos, till all at once it darkened and
spread wide in wild despair, and aspiring again into a pealing agony
of supplication, quivered and died away in a low and funereal sigh.
The tears streamed suddenly upon his face; his soul lightened and
turned dark within him; and, as one faints away, so consciousness
swooned, and he fell suddenly down a precipice of sleep. The music rose
again, a pensive and holy chant, and sounded on to its close, unaffected
by the action of his brain, for he slept and heard it no more. He lay
tranquilly, hardly seeming to breathe, in motionless repose. The room
was dim and silent, and the furniture took uncouth shapes around him.
The red glow upon the ceiling, from the screened fire, showed the misty
figure of the phantom kneeling by his side.
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