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Page 23
Rebecca moaned aloud.
"What are you doing that for?" asked Caroline harshly.
"Poor Edward," returned Rebecca.
"That is all you have to groan for," said Caroline. "There is
nothing else."
"I am going to bed," said Mrs. Brigham. "I sha'n't be able to be
at the funeral if I don't."
Soon the three sisters went to their chambers and the south parlour
was deserted. Caroline called to Henry in the study to put out the
light before he came upstairs. They had been gone about an hour
when he came into the room bringing the lamp which had stood in the
study. He set it on the table and waited a few minutes, pacing up
and down. His face was terrible, his fair complexion showed livid;
his blue eyes seemed dark blanks of awful reflections.
Then he took the lamp up and returned to the library. He set the
lamp on the centre 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. He was a physician.
"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 Doctor Mitford."
"Consultation?" inquired Mrs. Brigham.
"I have business," replied Henry.
Doctor Mitford was an old classmate of his who lived in a
neighbouring 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 sharply.
"Nothing," replied Rebecca.
Nobody entered the library that day, nor the next, 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 for three days anyhow, at such a time
as this, and I know he has some very sick ones; he said so. 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 parlour. There was no light in the
study opposite, and the door was ajar.
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