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Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers by Susanna Moodie
page 70 of 383 (18%)
is the voice of time marking its slow but certain progress towards
eternity, and warning us in solemn tones that it will soon cease to
number the hours for the sufferer for ever. Elinor trembled as she
listened to the low monotonous measured sounds; and she felt at that
moment a presentiment that her own weary pilgrimage on earth was drawing
to a close.

"Oh, Algernon!" she thought; "it may be a crime, but I sometimes think
that if I could see you once more--only once more--I could forget all
my wrongs and sufferings, and die in peace."

The unuttered thought was scarcely formed, when a slight rustling noise
shook the curtains of the bed, and the next moment a tall figure in
white glided across the room. It drew nearer, and Elinor, in spite of
the wish she had just dared to whisper to herself, struggled with the
vision, as a sleeper does with the night-mare, when the suffocating
grasp of the fiend is upon his throat. Her presence of mind forsook her,
and, with a shriek of uncontrollable terror, she flung herself across
the bed, and endeavored to awaken her husband. The place he had occupied
a few minutes before was vacant; and, raising her fear-stricken head,
she perceived, with feelings scarcely less allied to fear, that the
figure she had mistaken for the ghost of Algernon was the corporeal form
of the miser.

He was asleep, but his mind appeared to be actively employed. He drew
near the table with a cautious step, and took from beneath a broad
leathern belt, which he always wore next his skin, a small key. Elinor
sat up on the bed, and watched his movements with intense interest. He
next took up the candle, and glided out of the room. Slipping off her
shoes she followed him with noiseless steps. He descended the great
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