vivid persistence. This tortured
him. Sitting there, with arms tightly interlocked, he resolved to wrench
his mind down by sheer will upon other things; and a savage pleasure at
what at once seemed success, took possession of him. In this mood, he
heard soft footsteps and the rustle of festal garments on the stairs,
and had a fierce complacency in being able to clearly apprehend that it
was his wife and daughter going out to the party. In a moment, he heard
the controlled and even voice of Mrs. Renton--a serene and polished lady
with whom he had lived for years in cold and civil alienation, both
seeing as little of each other as possible. With a scowl of will upon
his brow, he received her image distinctly into his mind, even to the
minutia of the dress and ornaments he knew she wore, and felt an
absolutely savage exultation in his ability to retain it. Then came the
sound of the closing of the hall door and the rattle of receding wheels,
and somehow it was Nathalie and not his wife that he was holding so
grimly in his thought, and with her, salient and vivid as before, the
tormenting remembrance of his tenant, connected with the memory of
George Feval. Springing to his feet, he walked the room.

He had thrown himself on a sofa, still striving to be rid of his
remorseful visitations, when the library door opened, and the inside man
appeared, with his hand held bashfully over his nose. It flashed on him
at once, that his tenant's husband was the servant of a family like this
fellow; and, irritated that the whole matter should be thus broadly
forced upon him in another way, he harshly asked him what he wanted. The
man only came in to say that Mrs. Renton and the young lady had gone out
for the evening, but that tea was laid for him in the dining-room. He
did not want any tea, and if anybody called, he was not at home. With
this charge, the man left the room, closing the door behind him.

If he could but sleep a little! Rising from the sofa, he turned the
lights of the chandelier low, and screened the fire. The room was still.
The ghost stood, faintly radiant, in a remote corner. Dr. Renton lay
down again, but not to repose. Things he had forgotten of his dead
friend, now started up again in remembrance, fresh from the grave of
many years; and not one of them but linked itself by some mysterious
bond to something connected with his tenant, and became an accusation.

He had lain thus for more than an hour, feeling more an