"What, what," he thought, "can this betoken?"
He listened intently, but there was no sound of breathing. Once
more, with a great effort, he reached out the end of his finger to
the spot he had already touched; but this time he leaped back half
a yard, and stood shivering and fixed with terror. There was
something in his bed. What it was he knew not, but there was
something there.
It was some seconds before he could move. Then, guided by an
instinct, he fell straight upon the matches, and keeping his back
towards the bed lighted a candle. As soon as the flame had
kindled, he turned slowly round and looked for what he feared to
see. Sure enough, there was the worst of his imaginations
realised. The coverlid was drawn carefully up over the pillow, but
it moulded the outline of a human body lying motionless; and when
he dashed forward and flung aside the sheets, he beheld the blond
young man whom he had seen in the Bullier Ball the night before,
his eyes open and without speculation, his face swollen and
blackened, and a thin stream of blood trickling from his nostrils.
Silas uttered a long, tremulous wail, dropped the candle, and fell
on his knees beside the bed.
Silas was awakened from the stupor into which his terrible
discovery had plunged him by a prolonged but discreet tapping at
the door. It took him some seconds to remember his position; and
when he hastened to prevent anyone from entering it was already too
late.
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