tered the room,
the full light of the candles dazzled her for an instant, coming out of
the darkness. They were flaring wildly in the draught that came in
through the open door, by which the outer air was admitted; for a moment
there seemed no one in the room, and then she saw, with strange sick
horror, the legs of some one lying on the carpet behind the table. As if
compelled, even while she shrank from doing it, she went round to see who
it was that lay there, so still and motionless as never to stir at her
sudden coming. It was Mr. Dunster; his head propped on chair-cushions,
his eyes open, staring, distended. There was a strong smell of brandy
and hartshorn in the room; a smell so powerful as not to be neutralized
by the free current of night air that blew through the two open doors.
Ellinor could not have told whether it was reason or instinct that made
her act as she did during this awful night. In thinking of it
afterwards, with shuddering avoidance of the haunting memory that would
come and overshadow her during many, many years of her life, she grew to
believe that the powerful smell of the spilt brandy absolutely
intoxicated her--an unconscious Rechabite in practice. But something
gave her a presence of mind and a courage not her own. And though she
learnt to think afterwards that she had acted unwisely, if not wrongly
and wickedly, yet she marvelled, in recalling that time, how she could
have then behaved as she did. First of all she lifted herself up from
her fascinated gaze at the dead man, and went to the staircase door, by
which she had entered the study, and shut it softly. Then she went
back--looked again; took the brandy-bottle, and knelt down, and tried to
pour some into the mouth; but this she found she could not do. Then she
wetted her handkerchief with the spirit, and moistened the lips; all to
no purpose; for, as I have said before, the man was dead--killed by
rupture of a vessel of the brain; how occasioned I must tell by-and-by.
Of course, all Ellinor's little cares and efforts produced no effect; her
father had tried them before--vain endeavours all, to bring back the
precious breath of life! The poor girl could not bear the look of those
open eyes, and softly, tenderly, tried to close them, although
unconscious that in so doing she was rendering the pious offices of some
beloved hand to a dead man. She was sitting by the body on the floor
when she heard steps coming with rushing and