Willem had been restless and feverish, and had asked repeatedly to be brought down to the living-room. He seemed irresistibly drawn toward the place where he had talked with Peter Grimm and had "almost seen him."
So the sofa had been drawn up to the fire and a bed made for him there. Now, however, he was at last sleeping peacefully in his little upstairs room, and the whole house was quiet, though no one else had gone to bed, and there was everywhere a subdued feeling of excitement.
The doctor had drawn a little table close to the vacant side of the fireplace (for the coals still smouldered, and the night was damp and chill). He had placed Willem's medicines there; and a lamp, the only bright spot in the big room.
Outside, the world was bathed in moonlight, and through the window the arms of the windmill could be seen, waving solemnly round and round like some strange, black mysterious creature beckoning silently from another world.
McPherson was preparing a formal statement of the "séance" while it was still fresh in his mind. And as Willem might need him, he was filling in a waiting hour by writing.
Mrs. Batholommey's anxious face, encased in a scarf, broke in upon his concentration.
"Oh—I'm so nervous!" exclaimed the rector's wife, shudderingly, as she came into the room and going to the piano, turned up the second lamp.
"How can you sit here in such a dim light, after all that has happened in this room—just a few hours ago, too?"
Dr. McPherson, intent upon his work, was determined not to be interrupted. His only reply to Mrs. Batholommey was the scratching of his pen and the rattle of paper as he turned over a page.