Scoville was again upon her feet, this
time with a determination which ignored the hour and welcomed
night as though it were broad noon day.
There was a room on this upper floor into which neither she nor
Reuther had ever stepped. She had once looked in but that was all.
To-night--because she could not sleep; because she must not think-
-she was resolved to enter it. Oliver's room! left as he had left
it years before! What might it not tell of a past concerning which
she longed to be reassured?
The father had laid no restrictions upon her, in giving her this
floor for her use. Rights which he ignored she could afford to
appropriate. Dressing sufficiently for warmth, she lit a candle,
put out the light in her own room and started down the hall.
If she paused on reaching the threshold of this long-closed room,
it was but natural. The clock on Reuther's mantel had sent its
three clear strokes through the house as her hand fell on the
knob, and to her fearing heart and now well-awakened imagination
these strokes had sounded in her ear like a "DON'T! DON'T!" The
silence, so gruesome, now that this shrill echo had ceased, was
poor preparation for her task. Yet would she have welcomed any
sound--the least which could have been heard? No, that were a
worse alternative than silence; and, relieved of that momentary
obsession consequent upon an undertaking of doubtful outcome, she
pushed the door fully open and entered.
A smother of dust--an odour of decay--a lack of all order in the
room's arrangements and furnishings--even a general disarray,
hallowed, if not affected, by time--for all this she was prepared.
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