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Blackwood, Algernon, 1869-1951

"The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories"

Hank poked up the logs with his boot,
and Morris seized an ember in his bare fingers to light his pipe,
although it was already emitting clouds of smoke. But the professor
caught the ball flying.
"I thought you said he sank without a cry," he remarked quietly, looking
straight up into the frightened face opposite, and then riddling
mercilessly the confused explanation that followed.
The cumulative effect of all these forces, hitherto so rigorously
repressed, now made itself felt, and the circle spontaneously broke up,
everybody moving at once by a common instinct. The professor's wife left
the party abruptly, with excuses about an early start next morning. She
first shook hands with Rushton, mumbling something about his comfort in
the night.
The question of his comfort, however, devolved by force of circumstances
upon myself, and he shared my tent. Just before wrapping up in my double
blankets--for the night was bitterly cold--he turned and began to
explain that he had a habit of talking in his sleep and hoped I would
wake him if he disturbed me by doing so.


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