“However,” said he, “I’m confident we’ll have her now before long. I must go home to-night to see my Lenore; I promised her, and she will make herself sick sitting up.”
“Go; and let me remain here. I will stay until it is perfectly apparent that she does not expect to return.”
“It will spoil the dinner. But, now that we have sacrificed so much, a few hours more of inconvenience—”
“Will be willingly endured. I will get some bread and cheese and a glass of beer of your friend, the penny-grocer, and remain at my post.”
“You need not stay later than twelve; which will bring you home about two, at the slow rate of midnight travel. I shall sit up for you. Au revoir.”
I changed my mind about supping at the grocer’s as the twilight deepened into night. The dim light of the hall and staircase, part of them in total darkness, enabled me to steal up to the deserted room unperceived by any one of the other inmates of the great building.
Here I put fresh coal on the fire, and by the faint glow which soon came from the open front of the stove, I found a chair, and placing it so that it would be in the shadow upon the opening of the door, I seated myself to await the return of the occupants. The odor of roasting potatoes, given forth at the increased heat, admonished me that I had partaken of but a light lunch since an early and hasty breakfast; drawing forth one from the oven, I made a frugal meal upon it, and then ordered my soul to patience. I sat long in the twilight of the room; I could hear the bells of the city chiming the passing hours; the grocer and variety-storekeepers closing the shutters of their shops; the shuffling feet of men coming home, to such homes as they had in the dreary building, until nearly all the noises of the street and house died away.
Gazing on the fire, I wondered where that strange woman was keeping that little child through those unwholesome hours. Did she carry it in her arms while she hovered, like a ghost, amid the awful quiet of drooping willows and gleaming tombstones? Did she rock it to sleep on her breast, in the fearful shadow of some vault, with a row of coffins for company? Or was she again fleeing over deserted fields, crouching in lonely places, fatigued, distressed, panting under the weight of the innocent babe who slumbered on a guilty bosom, but driven still, on, on, by the lash of a dreadful secret? I made wild pictures in the sinking embers, as I mused; were I an artist I would reproduce them in all their lurid light and somber shadow; but I am not. The close air of the place, increased in drowsiness by the gas from the open doors of the stove, the deep silence, and my own fatigue, after the varying journeys and excitements of the day, at last overcame me; I remember hearing the town clock strike eleven, and after that I must have slumbered.
As I slept, I continued my waking dreams; I thought myself still gazing in the smoldering fire; that the sewing-girl came in without noise, sat down before it, and silently wept over the child who lay in her arms; that Lenore came out of the golden embers, with wings tipped with ineffable brightness, looking like an angel, and seemed to comfort the mourner, and finally took her by the hand, and passing me, so that I felt the motion of the air swept by her wings and garments, led her out through the door, which closed with a slight noise.
At the noise made by the closing door, I awoke. As I gathered my confused senses about me, I was not long in coming to the conclusion that I had, indeed, heard a sound and felt the air from an open door—some one had been in the room. I looked at my watch by a match which I struck, for the fire had now entirely expired. It was one o’clock. Vexed beyond words that I had slumbered, I rushed out into the empty passages, where, standing silent, I listened for any footstep. There was not the echo of a sound abroad. The halls were wrapped in darkness. Quietly and swiftly I felt my way down to the street; not a soul to be seen in any direction. Yet I felt positive that Leesy Sullivan, creeping from her shelter, had returned to her room at that midnight hour, had found me there, sleeping, and had fled.