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t he will not object. I have already consulted him, and he expresses himself as satisfied with the arrangement." "Very well," said I; "then I will promise to consider the subject. I can at any rate look over the manuscript and give you my opinion of its condition." "Oh, thank you," said she, with the prettiest gesture of satisfaction. "How kind you are, and what can I ever do to repay you? But would you like to see Mr. Harwell himself?" and she moved towards the door; but suddenly paused, whispering, with a short shudder of remembrance: "He is in the library; do you mind?" Crushing down the sick qualm that arose at the mention of that spot, I replied in the negative. "The papers are all there, and he says he can work better in his old place than anywhere else; but if you wish, I can call him down." But I would not listen to this, and myself led the way to the foot of the stairs. "I have sometimes thought I would lock up that room," she hurriedly observed; "but something restrains me. I can no more do so than I can leave this house; a power beyond myself forces me to confront all its horrors. And yet I suffer continually from terror. Sometimes, in the darkness of the night--But I will not distress you. I have already said too much; come," and with a sudden lift of the head she mounted the stairs. Mr. Harwell was seated, when we entered that fatal room, in the one chair of all others I expected to see unoccupied; and as I beheld his meagre figure bending where such a little while before his eyes had encountered the outstretched form of his murdered employer, I could not but marvel over the unimaginativeness of the man who, in the face of such memories, could not only appropriate that very spot for his own use, but pursue his avocations there with so much calmness and evident precision. But in another moment I discovered that the disposition of the light in the room made that one seat the only desirable one for his purpose; and instantly my wonder changed to admiration at this quiet surrender of personal feeling to the requirements of the occasion. He looked up mechanically as we came in, but did not rise, his countenance wearing the absorbed expression which bespeaks the preoccupied mind. "He is utterly oblivious," Mary whispered; "that is a way of his. I doubt if he knows who or what it is that has disturbed him." And, advancing into the room, she passed across his line of vision, as if to call atten
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