Stories of Mystery | Page 3

his startled mind; but then,
he knew he was in a highly wrought state of nervous excitement, and
his medical science, with that knowledge for a basis, could have reared
a formidable fortress of explanation against any phenomenon, were it
even more wonderful than this.
He entered the house; kicked the door to; pulled off his overcoat;
wrenched off his outer 'kerchief; slammed them on a branch of the
clothes-tree; banged his hat on top of them; wheeled about; pushed in
the door of his library; strode in, and, leaving the door ajar, threw
himself into an easy-chair, and sat there in the fire-reddened dusk, with
his white brows knit, and his arms tightly locked on his breast. The
ghost had followed him, sadly, and now stood motionless in a corner of

the room, its spectral hands crossed on its bosom, and its white locks
drooping down!
It was evident Dr. Renton was in a bad humor. The very library caught
contagion from him, and became grouty and sombre. The furniture was
grim and sullen and sulky; it made ugly shadows on the carpet and on
the wall, in allopathic quantity; it took the red gleams from the fire on
its polished surfaces in homoeopathic globules, and got no good from
them. The fire itself peered out sulkily from the black bars of the grate,
and seemed resolved not to burn the fresh deposit of black coals at the
top, but to take this as a good time to remember that those coals had
been bought in the summer at five dollars a ton,-- under price, mind
you,--when poor people, who cannot buy at advantage, but must get
their firing in the winter, would then have given nine or ten dollars for
them. And so (glowered the fire), I am determined to think of that
outrage, and not to light them, but to go out myself, directly! And the
fire got into such a spasm of glowing indignation over the injury, that it
lit a whole tier of black coals with a series of little explosions, before it
could cool down, and sent a crimson gleam over the moody figure of its
owner in the easy-chair, and over the solemn furniture, and into the
shadowy corner filled by the ghost.
The spectre did not move when Dr. Renton arose and lit the chandelier.
It stood there, still and gray, in the flood of mellow light. The curtains
were drawn, and the twilight without had deepened into darkness. The
fire was now burning in despite of itself, fanned by the wintry gusts,
which found their way down the chimney. Dr. Renton stood with his
back to it, his hands behind him, his bold white forehead shaded by a
careless lock of black hair, and knit sternly; and the same frown in his
handsome, open, searching dark eyes. Tall and strong, with an erect
port, and broad, firm shoulders, high, resolute features, a commanding
figure garbed in aristocratic black, and not yet verging into the
proportions of obesity,--take him for all in all, a very fine and favorable
specimen of the solid men of Boston. And seen in contrast (oh! could
he but have known it!) with the attenuated figure of the poor, dim
ghost!

Hark! a very light foot on the stairs,--a rich rustle of silks. Everything
still again,--Dr. Renton looking fixedly, with great sternness, at the
half-open door, whence a faint, delicious perfume floats into the library.
Somebody there, for certain. Somebody peeping in with very bright,
arch eyes. Dr. Renton knew it, and prepared to maintain his ill-humor
against the invader. His face became triply armed with severity for the
encounter. That's Netty, I know, he thought. His daughter. So it was. In
she bounded. Bright little Netty! Gay little Netty! A dear and sweet
little creature, to be sure, with a delicate and pleasant beauty of face
and figure, it needed no costly silks to grace or heighten. There she
stood. Not a word from her merry lips, but a smile which stole over all
the solitary grimness of the library, and made everything better, and
brighter, and fairer, in a minute. It floated down into the cavernous
humor of Dr. Renton, and the gloom began to lighten directly,--though
he would not own it, nor relax a single feature. But the wan ghost in the
corner lifted its head to look at her, and slowly brightened as to
something worthy a spirit's love, and a dim phantom's smiles. Now then,
Dr. Renton! the lines are drawn, and the foe is coming. Be martial, sir,
as when you stand in the ranks of the Cadets on training-days! Steady,
and stand the charge! So he did. He kept an inflexible front as she
glided toward him, softly, slowly, with her bright eyes