The ghosts of buried misdoings,
which he had thought long lost in the mists of recollection, started up
menacingly from their forgotten graves, and made him shrink with a sense
of their awful reality. Behind him, like a wilderness, lay years which
the locust had eaten; the intrusted hours which had passed away, and
been reckoned to him as they past.
And the thought of Russell mingled with all--Russell, as he fondly
imagined him now, glorified with the glory of heaven, crowned, and in
white robes, and with a palm in his hand. Yes, he had walked and talked
with one of the Holy Ones. Had Edwin's death, quenched his human
affections, and altered his human heart? If not, might not he be there
even now, leaning over his friend with the beauty of his invisible
presence? The thought startled him, and seemed to give an awful lustre
to the moonbeam which fell into the room. No; he could not endure such a
presence now, with his weak conscience and corrupted heart; and Eric hid
his head under the clothes, and shut his eyes.
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