There was no occupant of the room, however, and I grew
calmer as I stood before the fire, which drew from my wet clothes a
cloud of steam. The ruddy fingers of the fire-gleam playing upon the
walls made the colours of the pictures seem bright as the tints of
stained glass. The pathetic message of those flickering rays flowed
into my soul. The red mantle of the Prodigal Son, in which he was
feeding the swine, shone as though it had been soaked in sorrow and
blood-red sin. The house was apparently empty; the tension of my
passion became for the first time relaxed, and I passed into a
strange mood of pathos, dreamy, but yet acute, in which Winifred's
fate, and my mother's harshness, and my father's scarred breast,
seemed all a mingled mystery of reminiscent pain.
I had not stood more than a minute, however, when I was startled into
a very different mood. I thought I heard a sobbing noise, which
seemed to me to come from some one overhead, some one lying upon the
boards of the room above me. I was rooted to the spot where I stood,
for the sob seemed scarcely human, and yet it seemed to be hers.
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