"The portrait of a gentleman," he said, and passed on.
That night, in his own room, he took from an escritoire a picture of Evelyn Byrd, done in miniature after a painting by a pupil of Kneller, and, carrying it over to the light of the myrtle candles upon the table, sat down and fell to studying it.

After a while he let it drop from his hand, and leaned back in his chair, thinking.
The night air, rising slightly, bent back the flame of the candles, around which moths were fluttering, and caused strange shadows upon the walls.
They were thick about the curtained bed whereon had died the elder Haward,--a proud man, choleric, and hard to turn from his purposes.

Into the mind of his son, sitting staring at these shadows, came the fantastic notion that amongst them, angry and struggling vainly for speech, might be his father's shade.

The night was feverish, of a heat and lassitude to foster grotesque and idle fancies.

Haward smiled, and spoke aloud to his imaginary ghost.
"You need not strive for speech," he said.