A
vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
silence, night, solitude, a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
left alone.
The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.
In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
the pier with his handkerchief tied to his cane, waving it after
Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water.
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