She instructed the servants to prepare a light luncheon for her at noon and leave it on the dining table, paying no further heed to her. She intended, she said, to arrange her husband's books.
But first she went upstairs. There beside her bed was the child's crib, cheerless without its sheets and embroidery. The empty room, from which daylight was nearly excluded chilled her. The rugs were removed and her heels clicked sharply on the bare floor, making hollow echoes as she walked. She overcame the oppressive sense of desolation and went about her tasks.
She put the child's trinkets away; the spoon which had been useless, the cup from which he had never drunk, the gold chain given by Mrs. Joe, and which, partaking of the nature of the Great Serpent, had been found too heavy for agreeable wear; these were laid among her treasures. His clothes, except the little gown he had worn when dying, were put aside to be sent to poor women, already mothers or about to become such. Leonard had once suggested kindly that they were too fine. "The mothers won't think so," she had replied.
This work finished, she closed the door of the room and walked down the broad, old-fashioned stairway, every foot-fall echoing through the ancient house of which she seemed to be the only occupant; and though she knew the maids were at their tasks and within reach, the impression affected her unpleasantly. She glanced more than once over her shoulder as she descended the staircase and walked through the echoing hall.
She entered the library—a large room, dedicated, at least nominally, even in the days of Jeremiah Morley, to its present purpose, and later, by Cousin Jared and her husband, lined from floor to ceiling with books, a cheerful room when lighted, but now, with bare floor and closed shutters, a gloomy vault in whose distant corners, where the shadows were dark, the spirits of former occupants might lurk and peer at this invader. The uncanny impressions that had been with her were deepened by the sombre fancies awakened by the aspect of the room, in which the confusion attendant on Leonard's labors was everywhere apparent. Books were everywhere—on chairs, on tables, on the floor, face downward in the shelves.
She took up a small volume. Its evident antiquity attracted her and she read the title-page: "Delay Not; or, A Call to the Careless," by the Reverend Eliphalet Claghorn. Numerous names on the fly-leaves disclosed that the book had been handed down through many Claghorns. The last name was her husband's; preceding that his father's, to whom it had been given, as testified by the inscription, by "E. Beverley Claghorn." E. Beverley Claghorn, she knew, had been her own father. Turning the pages, her attention was arrested.
She read for hours. Sunk in a heap on the floor, forgotten by the servants, her eyes gloated on the page written by her ancestor. No romance had ever enchained her attention as did all this "Call to the Careless." If the writer had so charmed the reader of his own generation, the dead hand that had composed the pages which held this reader spell-bound must have been guided by a brain cunning in the author's craft. Whatever was the story, the woman lived in its terrors; she cowered and moaned, her eyes stood out, and her face was a face distorted by the horror of a soul in fear. But she could not leave the story. Enthralled until the last page had been turned, she only then looked up, and her eyes, which that morning had been bright with the light of hope, born of the resolve to resume her duties as a wife, were now dull with the shadow of an awful dread.
She glanced fearfully around and tried to rise, but crouched again upon the floor, one hand still clutching book and dust-cloth, the other held as though to shield her from a blow. She uttered no word, but a strange, hoarse rattle came from her throat, as though she would have prayed, had her voice been at her command. At last she rose, half staggering, retreating backward toward the door, as though she feared some presence, and, not daring to turn, must face it. Thus she passed out of the room and from the house.
She walked, at first, with uncertain steps, then more firmly, and with ever swifter stride. The by-streets through which she passed were quiet, almost deserted; she was hardly noticed, though in one or two observers a faint curiosity was aroused by the figure of the well-dressed, hatless woman, be-aproned and clasping to her breast a dust-cloth and a book. As for her, she noticed nothing as she hastened on.
Without pause, with ever-increasing pace, which had now become a run, she entered the gates of the cemetery, threading its alleys, seeing nothing with her bodily eyes; for their horror and despair were no reflection of the mournful yet peaceful scene in which she passed. She came to the grave of her child. Again she crouched as she had done in the library of her home; her despairing eyes were turned upward and her hands raised in appeal to the serene and pitiless sky.