in the figure of the phantom, darkened slowly, till
the form was only a pale shadow. The wind had suddenly lulled, and no
longer lifted its white hair. It still glided on with him, its head
drooping on its breast, and its long arms hanging by its side; but when
he reached the door, it suddenly sprang before him, gazing fixedly into
his eyes, while a convulsive motion flashed over its grief-worn
features, as if it had shrieked out a word. He had his foot on the step
at the moment. With a start, he put his gloved hand to his forehead,
while the vexed look went out quickly on his face. The ghost watched him
breathlessly. But the irritated expression came back to his countenance
more resolutely than before, and he began to fumble in his pocket for a
latch-key, muttering petulantly, "What the devil is the matter with me
now!" It seemed to him that a voice had cried, clearly, yet as from
afar, "Charles Renton!"--his own name. He had heard it in his startled
mind; but, then, he knew he was in a highly wrought state of nervous
excitement, and his medical science, with that knowledge for a basis,
could have reared a formidable fortress of explanation against any
phenomenon, were it even more wonderful than this.

He entered the house; kicked the door to; pulled off his over-coat;
wrenched off his outer 'kerchief; slammed them on a branch of the
clothes-tree; banged his hat on top of them; wheeled about; pushed in
the door of his library; strode in, and, leaving the door ajar, threw
himself into an easy chair, and sat there in the fire-reddened dusk,
with his white brows knit, and his arms tightly locked on his breast.
The ghost had followed him, sadly, and now stood motionless in a corner
of the room, its spectral hands crossed on its bosom, and its white
locks drooping down.

It was evident Dr. Renton was in a bad humor. The very library caught
contagion from him, and became grouty and sombre. The furniture was
grim, and sullen, and sulky; it made ugly shadows on the carpet and on
the wall, in allopathic quantity; it took the red gleams from the fire
on its polished surfaces, in hom[oe]opathic globules, and got no good
from them. The fire itself peered out sulkily from the black bars of the
grate, and seemed resolved not to burn the fresh deposit of black coals
at the top, but to take this as a good time to remember that those coals
had been bought in the summer at five dollars a ton--under price, mind
you--when poor people, w