The Man with a Shadow. Fenn George Manville

where the cinders fell together from time to time with a peculiar musical sound – the sound that strikes a watcher’s ear so strangely in the long hours of the night.

      His thoughts were wild, and a tempest was raging in his breast as furious as that without. Love had made its first attack upon a strong man, and the wound was rankling. His brain was confused. He was almost giddy with his new sensations, astonished at the position in which he found himself.

      He had been keen enough man of the world to understand Mrs Berens’ tender, shrinking advances, and they had been to him by turns a cause of annoyance and of mirth. But this was a novel and an intense delight. He could not have believed that he could be so moved.

      It was a hard fight, but the man of honour won.

      “I am her brother’s friend; I am her medical attendant,” he mused; “and neither by word nor look will I betray what passes in my heart till she is well. Then I, too, will lay bare the secret I shall hide.”

      “And if she speaks to you again as she spoke a while ago – what then?”

      It was as if a soft voice had whispered those words in his ear, and he shivered as he asked himself, “What shall I say?”

      “It is all madness,” he cried fiercely – “utter madness. They were the outpourings of her diseased brain. Am I growing into an idiot? Has much study of the occult wonders of our life half turned my brain?”

      He walked quickly to the bed, took up the candle, and let its light fall upon the flushed face for a few moments, a face looking so beautifully attractive with its wealth of rich hair tossed away over the white pillow.