(There was yet one more among the absent—one from whose approach the deathbed must be kept sacred; one, whose evil presence was to be dreaded as a pestilence and a scourge. Mannion!—where was Mannion?)
I sat by the window, resigned to wait in loneliness till the end came, watching mechanically the vacant eyes that ever watched me—when, suddenly, the face of Margaret seemed to fade out of my sight. I started and looked round. The candle, which I had placed at the opposite end of the room, had burnt down without my noticing it, and was now expiring in the socket. I ran to light the fresh candle which lay on the table by its side, but was too late. The wick flickered its last; the room was left in darkness.
While I felt among the different objects under my hands for a box of matches: Margaret’s voice strengthened again.
“Innocent! innocent!” I heard her cry mournfully through the darkness. “I’ll swear I’m innocent, and father is sure to swear it too. Innocent Margaret! Oh, me! what innocence!”
She repeated these words over and over again, till the hearing them seemed to bewilder all my senses. I hardly knew what I touched. Suddenly, my searching hands stopped of themselves, I could not tell why. Was there some change in the room? Was there more air in it, as if a door had been opened? Was there something moving over the floor? Had Margaret left her bed?—No! the mournful voice was speaking unintermittingly, and speaking from the same distance.
I moved to search for the matches on a chest of drawers, which stood near the window. Though the morning was at its darkest, and the house stood midway between two gas-lamps, there was a glimmering of light in this place. I looked back into the room from the window, and thought I saw something shadowy moving near the bed. “Take him away!” I heard