[A Strange Story Complete by Edward Bulwer-Lytton]@TWC D-Link bookA Strange Story Complete CHAPTER IX 2/4
The furniture indeed was changed, there was no bed in the chamber; but the shape of the room, the position of the high casement, which was now wide open, and through which the moonlight streamed more softly than on that drear winter night, the great square beams intersecting the low ceiling,--all were impressed vividly on my memory.
The chair to which Mrs.Ashleigh beckoned me was placed just on the spot where I had stood by the bedhead of the dying man. I shrank back,--I could not have seated myself there.
So I remained leaning against the chimney-piece, while Mrs.Ashleigh told her story. She said that on their arrival the day before, Lilian had been in more than usually good health and spirits, delighted with the old house, the grounds, and especially the nook by the Monk's Well, at which Mrs. Ashleigh had left her that evening in order to make some purchases in the town, in company with Mr.Vigors.When Mrs.Ashleigh returned, she and Mr.Vigors had sought Lilian in that nook, and Mrs.Ashleigh then detected, with a mother's eye, some change in Lilian which alarmed her. She seemed listless and dejected, and was very pale; but she denied that she felt unwell.
On regaining the house she had sat down in the room in which we then were,--"which," said Mrs.Ashleigh, "as it is not required for a sleeping-room, my daughter, who is fond of reading, wished to fit up as her own morning-room, or study.
I left her here and went into the drawing-room below with Mr.Vigors.When he quitted me, which he did very soon, I remained for nearly an hour giving directions about the placing of furniture, which had just arrived, from our late residence. I then went up-stairs to join my daughter, and to my terror found her apparently lifeless in her chair.
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