Hugh closed the double
doors behind him, carefully and without noise; and Mr Chester remained
in his easy-chair, with his gaze intently fixed upon the fire.
'Well!' he said, after meditating for a long time--and said with a deep
sigh and an uneasy shifting of his attitude, as though he dismissed some
other subject from his thoughts, and returned to that which had held
possession of them all the day--the plot thickens; I have thrown the
shell; it will explode, I think, in eight-and-forty hours, and should
scatter these good folks amazingly. We shall see!'
He went to bed and fell asleep, but had not slept long when he started
up and thought that Hugh was at the outer door, calling in a strange
voice, very different from his own, to be admitted. The delusion was so
strong upon him, and was so full of that vague terror of the night
in which such visions have their being, that he rose, and taking his
sheathed sword in his hand, opened the door, and looked out upon the
staircase, and towards the spot where Hugh had lain asleep; and even
spoke to him by name. But all was dark and quiet, and creeping back
to bed again, he fell, after an hour's uneasy watching, into a second
sleep, and woke no more till morning.
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