A look of trouble darkened the sleeping face.
Stronger,--stronger; brighter,--brighter; until, at last, it stood
before him, a glorious shape of light, with, an awful look of commanding
love in its shining features: and the sleeper sprang to his feet with
a cry!
The phantom had vanished. He saw nothing. His first impression was,
not that he had dreamed, but that, awaking in the familiar room, he
had seen the spirit of his dead friend, bright and awful by his side,
and that it had gone! In the flash of that quick change, from sleeping
to waking, he had detected, he thought, the unearthly being that, he
now felt, watched him from behind the air, and it had vanished! The
library was the same as in the moment of that supernatural revealing;
the open letter lay upon the table still; only _that_ was gone which
had made these common aspects terrible. Then all the hard, strong
scepticism of his nature, which had been driven backward by the shock
of his first conviction, recoiled, and rushed within him, violently
struggling for its former vantage-ground; till, at length, it achieved
the foothold for a doubt.
Pages:
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60