Ananias and Sapphira figured in the foreground; and the awful nature
of fraud and theft, of tampering in anywise with the plain rule of
honesty in matters pertaining to estates, etc., were pointedly dwelt
upon; and then came a long and strenuous prayer, in which he entreated
with fervour and aplomb that the hard heart of the sinner who had
abstracted the leases might be softened or broken in such a way as to
lead to their restitution; or that, if he continued reserved and
contumacious, it might at least be the will of Heaven to bring him to
public justice and the documents to light. The fact is, that he was
praying all this time at the attorney.

When these religious exercises were over, the visitors retired to
their rooms, and my Uncle Watson wrote two or three pressing letters
by the fire. When his task was done, it had grown late; the candles
were flaring in their sockets, and all in bed, and, I suppose, asleep,
but he.

The fire was nearly out, he chilly, and the flame of the candles
throbbing strangely in their sockets, shed alternate glare and shadow
round the old wainscoted room and its quaint furniture. Outside were
all the wild thunder and piping of the storm; and the rattling of
distant windows sounded through the passages, and down the stairs,
like angry people astir in the house.

My Uncle Watson belonged to a sect who by no means rejected the
supernatural, and whose founder, on the contrary, has sanctioned
ghosts in the most emphatic way. He was glad therefore to remember,
that in prosecuting his search that day, he had seen some six inches
of wax candle in the press in the parlour; for he had no fancy to be
overtaken by darkness in his present situation. He had no time to