He was alone now--absolutely, utterly, alone with the dead man,
till the next morning.

The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up the
snuffers--but paused suddenly on the very point of using them, and
looked attentively at the candle--then back, over his shoulder, at
the curtained bed--then again at the candle. It had been lighted,
for the first time, to show him the way up-stairs, and three parts
of it, at least, were already consumed. In another hour it would
be burnt out. In another hour--unless he called at once to the man
who had shut up the Inn, for a fresh candle--he would be left in
the dark.

Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered his
room, his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule, and of
exposing his courage to suspicion, had not altogether lost its
influence over him, even yet. He lingered irresolutely by the
table, waiting till he could prevail on himself to open the door,
and call, from the landing, to the man who had shut up the Inn. In
his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind of relief to
gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling occupation of
snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a little, and the snuffers
were heavy and awkward to use. When he closed them on the wick, he
closed them a hair's breadth too low. In an instant the candle was
out, and the room was plunged in pitch darkness.

The one impression which the absence of light immediately produced
on his mind, was distrust of the curtained bed--distrust which
shaped itself into no distinct idea, but which was powerful enough
in its very vagueness, to bind him down to his chair, to make his