For there are moments even now when she tells herself that
he is still living, and only waiting for a saving hand to drag him into
smooth waters once again!
A silence has fallen upon the house more melancholy than the loudest
expression of grief. The servants are conversing over their supper in
frightened whispers, and conjecturing moodily as to the fate of their
late master. To them Sir Adrian is indeed dead, if not buried.
In the servants' corridor a strange dull light is being flung upon the
polished boards by a hanging-lamp that is burning dimly, as though
oppressed by the dire evil that has fallen upon the old castle. No sound
is to be heard here in this spot, remote from the rest of the house,
where the servants seldom come except to go to bed, and never indeed
without an inward shudder as they pass the door that leads to the
haunted chamber.
Just now, being at their supper, there is no fear that any of them will
be about, and so the dimly lighted corridor is wrapped in an unbroken
silence. Not quite unbroken, however. What is this that strikes upon the
ear? What sound comes to break the unearthly stillness? A creeping
footstep, a cautious tread, a slinking, halting, uncertain motion,
belonging surely to some one who sees an enemy, a spy in every flitting
shadow. Nearer and nearer it comes now into the fuller glare of the
lamp-light, and stops short at the door so dreaded by the castle
servants.
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