Finally the talk with his sister had excited his
imagination, and driven sleep from his eyelids. In vain he turned and
twisted in his bed, or paced the floor of his chamber. He was not
only awake, but abnormally awake, with every nerve highly strung, and
every sense at the keenest. What was he to do to gain a little sleep?
It flashed across him that there was brandy in the decanter downstairs,
and that a glass might act as a sedative.
He had opened the door of his room, when suddenly his ear caught the
sound of slow and stealthy footsteps upon the stairs. His own lamp was
unlit, but a dim glimmer came from a moving taper, and a long black
shadow travelled down the wall. He stood motionless, listening
intently. The steps were in the hall now, and he heard a gentle
creaking as the key was cautiously turned in the door. The next instant
there came a gust of cold air, the taper was extinguished, and a sharp
snap announced that the door had been closed from without.
Robert stood astonished. Who could this night wanderer be? It must be
his father. But what errand could take him out at three in the morning?
And such a morning, too! With every blast of the wind the rain beat up
against his chamber-window as though it would drive it in.
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