Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/223

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HAUNTED.
215

ceased to tremble in its presence. Time after time the false proportions, once so ghastly and gigantic, will grow less and less—some day the spectre will vanish altogether. Mind, I do not promise you another inmate. While you live the tenement will probably remain bare and uninhabited; but at the worst an empty room is surely better than a bad lodger! It is difficult, you will say, thus to ignore that of which both head and heart are full. So it is. Very difficult, very wearisome, very painful, yet not impossible! Make free use of the spell. Work, work, till your brain is so overwrought it cannot think, your body so tired it must rest or die. Pray, humbly, confidingly, sadly, like the publican, while your eyes can hardly keep open, your hands droop helpless by your side, and your sleep shall be sound, holy, unhaunted, so that with to-morrow's light you may rise to the unremitting task once more.