Where he had softened
harsh outlines, and peopled dark corridors with his own fancies, those
same outlines had taken on a grimness that he could hardly believe
possible, and the long, dark corridors of his mind's vision were longer
and darker and lonelier than he had ever imagined any spot could be.
It was a handsome place, no doubt, in its gaunt, gray, prisonlike way.
And, too, it had a moat and a miniature portcullis that rather tickled
his boyish fancy. The furnishings, however, had an appalling grimness
that took the very heart out of one. Chairs which seemed to have grown in
their places for centuries crowded the corners of hallway and stairs like
gigantic nightmares of their original prototypes. Monstrous curtains of
red brocade, grown purple with the years, seemed to hang from every
window and door crowding out the light and air. The carpets were thick
and dark and had lost all sign of pattern in the dull gloom of the
centuries.
It was, in fact, a house that would create ghosts. The atmosphere was
alive with that strange sensation of disembodied spirits which some
very old houses seem to possess.
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