Laura Brayton — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

28 LAURA BRAYTON. “Fiend!” hissed a voice so close to him that he sprang from the spot as if he had been bitten by a serpent. “There is some one here in this room!” he gasped, trembling from head to foot. “Yet Ican see no one. Oh, can the spirits of the dead come back— can they speak?” “Ha, ha, ha!” The room seemed filled with hollow peals of mocking laughter. The lawyer glared wildly about him for an instant, his face all distorted with fear, then he glanced up ata portrait on the wall. It was that of a young man with a college cad upon his head and a college gown upon his form. “It moves! it lives!. Luke Withers lives—lives! and I am lost!” | And, with a wild scream, he tottered and fell to the floor senseless. The next minute, Hearne i a lamp in her hand, Laura Brayton hurried into the room. “T heard a cry of distress!” she exclaimed. “J am sure it was here.” | Then, as her eyes fell on the form of the lawyer extended on the floor, she started back frightened. but, recovering her presence of mind, she stepped forward, bent over him, and, seeing that he breathed, put down her lamp and hurried away after water. : When she got back he was sitting up, his senses once more his own. Comicbooks.com