THERE was no hope for him this time: it was the third
stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was
vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window
: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same
way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would
see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I
knew that two candles must be set at the head of a
corpse. He had often said to me: “I am not long for this
world,”

and I had thought his words idle. Now I knew they were
true. Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly
to myself the word paralysis. It had always sounded
strangely in my ears, like the word gnomon in the Euclid
and the word simony in the Catechism. But now it
sounded to me like the name of some maleficent and
sinful being. It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be
nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work.

Old Cotter was sitting at the fire, smoking, when I came
downstairs to supper. While my aunt was ladling out my
stirabout he said, as if returning to some former remark
of his: “No, I wouldn’t say he was exactly... but there was
something queer... there was something uncanny about
him. I’ll tell you my opinion....”