The Wildfire Club - The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive

OR THE HAUNTED MAN. 123
covered that he.. either communicated with her, or to any
one who could inform her of the course of his erratic
mO\"ements. On the contrary, it was at length believed
that the extreme care with which he strove to envelop
those movements in mystery was caused by a desire to
elude the vigilance of his mysterious attendant. If this
was his object, the failure was certainly signal, for none
ever remembered, during many years, to have seen Mr.
H. preach without the presence of his phantom-like auditress.
Those who most narrowly scrutinized the conduct of
this singular couple could detect certain evidences in the
preacher's manner, that the effect upon himself, at least,
was prejudicial, if not actually ruinous, to health, happiness,
and intellect. Many who remembered the brilliant
advent of his short career, were confounded when they
considered how rapidly he had grown old, how evanescent
had been the bloom and beauty of youth, how transient
the glow of lustrous health on the cheek and brow. It
was sad to watch the deepening furrows and wasting lines
of cankering care, eating so openly into the thin cheek
and pallid brow. The light of his eyes looked out from
"the window of the soul" in troubled, fitful glare, like
the eager search of an unquiet spirit "seeking rest and
finding none:' Nothing seemed to escape the rugged
tooth of the hidden worm that was gnawing its way from
the depths of his silent, suffering soul to the tell tale
surface of the tabernacle, but the pathetic tones of his
melting voice. A deeper cadence, a more passionate inflection,
a more soul-stirring ring, like a well-strung harp
responding to the touch of a master-hand, echoing to the
chords of the deepest of human passions, were the elements
which seemed to gather power and intensity with