Explore "The Marrow of Tradition" by Charles W. Chesnutt on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Miller's doorbell rang loudly, insistently, as though demanding a response. Absorbed in his own grief, into which he had relapsed upon Carteret's departure, the sound was an unwelcome intrusion. Surely the man could not be coming back! If it were someone else -- What else might happen to the doomed town concerned him not. His child was dead -- his distracted wife could not be left alone.
The doorbell rang -- clamorously -- appealingly. Through the long hall and the closed door of the room where he sat, he could hear someone knocking, and a faint voice calling.