Pagina 235 de 657

"I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with

him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest

impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every

way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I

could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left

behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed

and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I

could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever,

and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his

time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the

inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy

and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a

revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man,

and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by

man or devil.