Then he took up the lamp and returned to the library. He set the lamp on
the center table and the shadow sprang out on the wall. Again he studied
the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately, with none of his
former frenzy. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the
south room with the lamp and again waited. Again he returned to the
study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon
the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Brigham and the
other sisters, who could not sleep, heard him.
The next day was the funeral. That evening the family sat in the south
room. Some relatives were with them. Nobody entered the study until
Henry carried a lamp in there after the others had retired for the
night. He saw again the shadow on the wall leap to an awful life before
the light.
The next morning at breakfast Henry Glynn announced that he had to go to
the city for three days. The sisters looked at him with surprise. He
very seldom left home, and just now his practice had been neglected on
account of Edward's death.
"How can you leave your patients now?" asked Mrs. Brigham wonderingly.
"I don't know how to, but there is no other way," replied Henry easily.
"I have had a telegram from Dr. Mitford."
"Consultation?" inquired Mrs. Brigham.
"I have business," replied Henry.
Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a neighboring
city and who occasionally called upon him in the case of a consultation.
After he had gone, Mrs. Brigham said to Caroline that, after all, Henry
had not said that he was going to consult with Doctor Mitford, and she
thought it very strange.
"Everything is very strange," said Rebecca with a shudder.
"What do you mean?" inquired Caroline.
"Nothing," replied Rebecca.
Nobody entered the study that day, nor the next. The third day Henry was
expected home, but he did not arrive and the last train from the city
had come.
"I call it pretty queer work," said Mrs. Brigham. "The idea of a doctor
leaving his patients at such a time as this, and the idea of a
consultation lasting three days! There is no sense in it, and _now_ he
has not come. I don't understand it, for my part."
"I don't either," said Rebecca.
They were all in the south parlor. There was no light in the study; the
door was ajar.
Presently Mrs. Brigham rose--she could not have told why; something
seemed to impel her--some will outside her own. She went out of the
room, again wrapping her rustling skirts round that she might pass
noiselessly, and began pushing at the swollen door of the study.
"She has not got any lamp," said Rebecca in a shaking voice.
Caroline, who was writing letters, rose again, took the only remaining
lamp in the room, and followed her sister. Rebecca had risen, but she
stood trembling, not venturing to follow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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