He must persevere, and a step or two more brought him to the door, which he found partially open,--a circumstance he thought strange, but could account for by supposing that there were neighbours inside--gossips who meet round death-beds to utter wise saws with dry eyes. Yet, though he listened, he heard no sounds. He now pushed open the door, and so quietly, as if he feared that a grating hinge would break the silence. The lobby was still darker than outside, and his first step was towards the kitchen, the door of which he pushed back. There was no one there,--a cruse which hung upon the wall was giving forth the smallest glimmer of a dying light. There was a red peat in the grate, smouldering into white ashes. Turning to the servant’s bed, he found it unoccupied, with the clothes neatly folded down, no doubt by Peggy’s careful hands, and no doubt, too, Peggy had solemn work to do “ben the house.” He next crossed the lobby, partly by groping, and reached a parlour, the door of which he opened gently. Dark too, and no one within. The same process was gone through with the dining-room, and with the same negative result. The last door was that of the bed-room, where he was to encounter what he feared. It was partially open. He placed his ear to the chink and listened, but he heard nothing. There was no living voice there, and death speaks none. He pushed the door open, and looked fearfully in. A small rushlight on the side-table opposite the bed threw some flickering beams around the room, bringing out indistinctly the white curtains of the bed. He approached a little, and could discover vaguely the form of his wife lying there. Would he take up the rushlight, and, with the necessary courage, go forward and examine the features? He had arrived at the spot, and at the moment, portrayed prospectively in his waking dream during his journey, and a few steps, with the rushlight in his hand, would realise the image he had brooded over so long. He struggled with himself, but without avail. Any little courage he had been for the last few minutes trying to summon up utterly gave way. There rushed into his mind vague fancies and fears,--creatures of the darkness and the death-like stillness around him, which he could neither analyse nor stay. He even thought he heard some sound from the bed where the corpse lay,--the consequence of all which was total loss of self-possession, approaching to something like a panic, and the effect of this, again, was a retreat. He sought the door, groped his way again through the inside lobby, got to the outer door, along the outer passage, down the stair to the street.