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402 |
THE HAUNTED MAN |
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"News? How?"
" Either your not writing when you Were Very ill, or the change in your handwriting when you began to be better, created some
suspicion of the truth ; however that is------but you're sure you'll
not be the worse for any news, if it's not bad news ?"
" Sure."
" Then there's some one come !" said Milly.
"My mother?" asked the student, glancing round involuntarily towards Redlaw, who had come down from the stairs.
"Hush! No," said Milly.
" It can be no one else."
" Indeed ?" said Milly, " are you sure ?"
" It is not------." Before he could say more, she put her hand
upon his mouth.
" Yes it is ! " said Milly. " The young lady (she is very like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) was too unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, and came up, last night, with a little servant-maid. As you always dated your letters from the college, she came there; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, I saw her. She likes me too !" said Milly. " Oh dear, that's another !"
" This morning ! Where is she now ?"
" Why, she is now," said Milly, advancing her lips to his ear, " in my little parlour in the Lodge, and waiting to see you."
He pressed her hand, and was darting off, but she detained him.
" Mr. Redlaw is much altered, and has told me this morning that his memory is impaired. Be very considerate to him, Mr. Edmund ; he needs that from us all."
The young man assured her, by a look, that her caution was not ill-bestowed; and as he passed the Chemist on his way out, bent respectfully and with an obvious interest before him.
Redlaw returned the salutation courteously and even humbly, and looked after him as he passed on. He drooped his head upon his hand too, as trying to reawaken something he had lost. But it was gone.
The abiding change that had come upon him since the influence of the music, and the Phantom's reappearance, was, that now he truly felt how much he had lost, and could compassionate his own condition, and contrast it, clearly, with the natural state of those who were around him. In this, an interest in those who were around him was revived, and a meek, submissive sense of his calamity was bred, resembling that which sometimes obtains in age, when its mental powers are weakened, without insensibility or sullenness being added to the list of its infirmities. |
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