In this segment, which Serling adapted from the Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman short story, Dr. Stephen Brigham (Louis Hayward, best known for his roles in several swashbuckler films several decades prior to playing this role) is reading to his invalided elder sister Emma (Agnes Moorehead) from a Dickens novel, something he's been doing for a course of decades while attending to her medical care for the same amount of time after leaving his medical practice due to his gambling problems and the fact that his patients were going to other doctors, and Stephen of course cares for Emma rather begrudgingly, as Ann (Grayson Hall, renowned for playing Dr. Julia Hoffman in the 1960s Gothic soap Dark Shadows, produced by Dan Curtis), one of his younger sisters, observes. Ann and Rebecca (Rachel Roberts) maintain the orderly condition of Emma's house, which is bequeathed to Emma's 3 siblings, along with the contents inside the house, to be split equally between them as her will stipulates, and Stephen has been giving Emma gradually larger doses of sedatives to kill her slowly, out of greed as much as out of resentment that their father bequeathed the bulk of his estate to Emma and next to nothing for Stephen, Ann, and Rebecca in his will. Emma's death devastates her 2 sisters, but Stephen immediately begins listing the house and all of its contents with the express intent of selling everything and splitting the proceeds between them, which both Ann and Rebecca both oppose. Stephen's plans are brought to a screeching halt, though, when he and his 2 sisters see what appears to be Emma's shadow on the living room wall, as though she were laying in profile in bed. Stephen, of course, attempts to find a logical explanation for this phenomenon, but despite repositioning the furniture and the lighting, painting and wallpapering where the shadow is, it remains there as if to accuse Stephen of responsibility for Emma's death. All of Stephen's frantic actions arouse Ann's suspicions, and even Rebecca sees her brother in a different light, asking about the sedatives that Stephen was treating Emma with. Stephen states to Rebecca that he was simply giving Emma the sedatives to relieve her pain and to help her sleep, and that he would, if asked, give some of the sedatives to Rebecca for the same purpose. Rebecca, though, puts a large amount of the sedatives in Stephen's tea, which results in a rather fatal dose of poetic justice dealt out to Stephen for his murderous greed. Rebecca comments to Ann that they're finally a family again, looking at both Emma's and Stephen's shadows on the living room wall. Stephen is seated next to Ann's bed, reading the Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities to Emma, which along with other Dickens novels he will read to Emma for all eternity. I found this segment to be one of many examples of pointed commentary concerning greed and its consequences. Spoiler alert: the off-key tune used in the segment by Jeff Corey, its director, and Robert Prince, the provider of scores for many of the segments of Night Gallery's first season, was titled Sing Me to Sleep, which was also sang and played on the piano by Rachel Roberts.
