Book account

CHAPTER XIV.
THE EFFECT OF THE STORY.

After the first great shock of surprise, when the word murderer dropped
from his lips, and he reproached his sister so harshly and unreasonably,
Burton Jerrold stood with folded arms, and a gloomy, unsympathetic face,
as immovable at first as if he had been a stone, and listened to the
tale as repeated by his father. But when the tragic part was reached,
and he saw the dead man on the floor, his sister crouching in the corner
of the room, with Rover at her side, the rude coffin, the open grave,
and the secret midnight burial, his breath came in long, shuddering
gasps, and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his forehead and
about his pallid lips. And when his father said, "I buried him here in
this room, under this bed, where I have slept ever since, and he is
there now," he started backward as suddenly as if the ghost of the
peddler had risen from the floor and confronted him. Then, staggering
forward, he would have fallen if Mr. Sanford had not caught him by the
arm and supported him a moment.


Pages:
162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186