1
The Evil Guest, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evil Guest, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Evil Guest
Author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Release Date: December 3, 2003 [EBook #10377] [Date last updated: January 22, 2005]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL GUEST ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
The Evil Guest
By J. Sheridan LeFanu
1895
"When Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin: and Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth Death."
About sixty years ago, and somewhat more than twenty miles from the ancient town of Chester, in a southward direction, there stood a large, and, even then, an old-fashioned mansion-house. It lay in the midst of a demesne of considerable extent, and richly wooded with venerable timber; but, apart from the somber majesty of these giant groups, and the varieties of the undulating ground on which they stood, there was little that could be deemed attractive in the place. A certain air of neglect and decay, and an indescribable gloom and melancholy, hung over it. In darkness, it seemed darker than any other tract; when the moonlight fell upon its glades and hollows, they looked spectral and awful, with a sort of churchyard loneliness; and even when the blush of