Men, Women, and Ghosts by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
page 36 of 303 (11%)
page 36 of 303 (11%)
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and shet the door, and go about your business."
I had left him in the dark on the office floor at last. Miss Dallas and I sat in the cold parlor and looked at each other. The fire was low and the lamp dull. The rain beat in an uncanny way upon the windows. I never like to hear the rain upon the windows. I liked it less than usual that night, and was just trying to brighten the fire a little, when the front door blew open. "Shut it, please," said I, between the jerks of my poker. But Miss Dallas looked over her shoulder and shivered. "Just look at that latch!" I looked at that latch. It rose and fell in a feeble fluttering way,--was still for a minute,--rose and fell again. When the door swung in and Harrie--or the ghost of her--staggered into the chilly room and fell down in a scarlet heap at my feet, Pauline bounded against the wall with a scream which pierced into the dark office where the Doctor lay with his face upon the floor. It was long before we knew how it happened. Indeed, I suppose we have never known it all. How she glided down, a little red wraith, through the dusk and damp to her boat; how she tossed about, with some dim, delirious idea of finding Myron on the ebbing waves; that she found herself stranded and tangled at last in the long, matted grass of that muddy cove, started to wade home, and sunk in the ugly ooze, held, |
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