The night had come; the fanlight over the door shone bright;
the two windows of the dining-room where the cloth was being
laid, and the three windows of the drawing-room where Maria
would be waiting dinner, glowed softlier through yellow
blinds. It was like a vision of the past. All this time of
his absence life had gone forward with an equal foot, and the
fires and the gas had been lighted, and the meals spread, at
the accustomed hours. At the accustomed hour, too, the bell
had sounded thrice to call the family to worship. And at the
thought, a pang of regret for his demerit seized him; he
remembered the things that were good and that he had
neglected, and the things that were evil and that he had
loved; and it was with a prayer upon his lips that he mounted
the steps and thrust the key into the key-hole.
He stepped into the lighted hall, shut the door softly behind
him, and stood there fixed in wonder. No surprise of
strangeness could equal the surprise of that complete
familiarity. There was the bust of Chalmers near the stair-
railings, there was the clothes-brush in the accustomed
place; and there, on the hat-stand, hung hats and coats that
must surely be the same as he remembered. Ten years dropped
from his life, as a pin may slip between the fingers; and the
ocean and the mountains, and the mines, and crowded marts and
mingled races of San Francisco, and his own fortune and his
own disgrace, became, for that one moment, the figures of a
dream that was over.
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