nths' rent,
and that you can't or won't pay me. I say, therefore, leave the
premises to people who can and will. You have had your legal notice;
quit my house to-morrow; if you don't, your furniture shall be
put in the street. Mark me,--to-morrow!"

The phantom had rushed into the centre of the room. Standing face
to face with him,--dilating,--blackening,--its whole form shuddering
with a fury to which his own was tame,--the semblance of a shriek upon
its flashing lips, and on its writhing features, and an unearthly
anger streaming from its bright and terrible eyes,--it seemed to
throw down, with its tossing arms, mountains of hate and malediction
on the head of him whose words had smitten poverty and suffering,
and whose heavy hand was breaking up the barriers of a home.

Dr. Renton sank again into his chair. His tenant,--not a woman!--not
a sister in humanity!--but only his tenant; she sat crushed and
frightened by the wall. He knew it vaguely. Conscience was battling
in his heart with the stubborn devils that had entered there. The
phantom stood before him, like a dark cloud in the image of a man.
But its darkness was lightening slowly, and its ghostly anger had
passed away.

The poor woman, paler than before, had sat mute and trembling, with
all her hopes ruined. Yet her desperation forbade her to abandon
the chances of his mercy, and she now said,--

"Dr. Renton, you surely don't mean what you have told me. Won't
you bear with me a little longer, and we will yet make it all right
with you?"

"I have given you my answer," he returned, coldly; "I have no more
to add. I never take back anything I say--never!"

It was true. He never did--never! She half rose from her seat as if
to go; but weak and sickened with the bitter result of her visit,
she sunk down again with her head bowed. There was a pause. Then,
solemnly gliding across the lighted room, the phantom stole to her
side with a glory of compassion on its wasted features. Tenderly,
as a son to a mother, it bent over her; its spectral hands of light
rested upon her in caressing and benediction; its shadowy fall of
hair, once blanched by the anguish of living and loving, floated
on her throbbing brow; and resignation and comfort not of this
world sank upon her spirit, and consciousness grew dim within her,
and care and sorrow seemed to die.

He who had been so cruel and so hard, sat silent in black gloom.
The stern and sullen mood, from which had dropped