Date: 1875-12-31T22:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Ghost Stories; Supernatural Fiction; Weird Fiction; Victorian Gothic Fiction
Description: In these eight atmospheric Victorian tales, ghosts of love thwarted, innocence betrayed, or duties unfulfilled return from the shadowy borders of beyond to engage with the living. Penn’s ghosts are poignant rather than malevolent; they do not provoke terror, but instead a sense of the uncanny strangeness of the supernatural.
Publisher: MobileRead
Rights: Public domain in the USA. Text is believed to be in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less.

Shadows from Beyond

THE GHOST STORIES
OF
Mary Elizabeth Penn

CONTENTS:

At Ravenholme Junction
Snatched from the Brink
How Georgette Kept Tryst
Desmond’s Model
Old Vanderhaven’s Will
The Tenant of the Cedars
In the Dark
The Strange Story of Our Villa

…About This eBook

At Ravenholme Junction

(Dec. 1876)

“Were you ever out in a more wretched night in your life?” asked Harry Luscombe in a tone of disgust, as we were trudging wearily along after a full half-hour of absolute silence.

The rain was certainly coming down “with a vengeance,” as people say. We had been out all day fishing in some private waters about ten miles from home. A friend had given us a lift in his trap the greater part of the way in going, and we had arranged to walk back, never dreaming that the sunny day would resolve itself into so wet an evening. Fortunately, each of us had taken a light mackintosh, and we had on our thick fishing-boots, otherwise our plight would have been much worse than it was.

“Wretched night!” again ejaculated Harry, whose pipe the rain would persist in putting out.

“But surely we cannot be far from the Grange now?” I groaned.

“A good four miles yet, old fellow,” answered my friend. “We must grin and bear it.”

For ten more minutes we paced the slushy road in moist silence.

“I wouldn’t have cared so much,” growled Harry at last, “if we had only a decent lot of fish to take home. Won’t Gerty and the governor chaff us in the morning!”

I winced. Harry had touched a sore point. I rather prided myself on my prowess with rod and line; yet here was I, after eight hours’ patient flogging of the water, going back to the Grange with a creel that I should blush to open when I got there. It was most annoying.

By-and-by we came to a stile, crossing which we found a footpath through the meadows, just faintly visible in the dark. The footpath, in time, brought us to a level crossing over the railway. But instead of crossing the iron road to the fields beyond, as I expected he would do, Harry turned half round and began to walk along the line. “Where on earth are you leading me to?” I asked, as I stumbled and barked my shins over a heap of loose sleepers by the side of the rails.

“Seest thou not yonder planets that flame so brightly in the midnight sky?” he exclaimed, pointing to two railway signals clearly visible some quarter of a mile away. “Thither are we bound. Disturb not the meditations of a great mind by further foolish questionings.”

I was too damp to retort as I might otherwise have done, so I held my peace and stumbled quietly after him. Little by little we drew nearer to the signal lamps, till at last we stood close under them. They shone far and high above our heads, being, in fact, the crowning points of two tall semaphore posts. But we were not going quite so far skyward as the lamps, our destination being the signalman’s wooden hut from which the semaphores were worked. This of itself stood some distance above the ground, being built on substantial posts driven firmly into the embankment. It was reached by a flight of wooden steps, steep and narrow. We saw by the light shining from its windows that it was not without an occupant. Harry put a couple of fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly. “Jim Crump,” he shouted, “Jim Crump—hi! Where are you?”

“Is that you, Mr. Harry?” said a voice, and then the door above us was opened. “Wait a moment, sir, till I get my lantern. The steps are slippery with the rain, and one of them is broken.”

“You see, my governor is one of the managing directors of this line,” said Harry, in explanation, while we were waiting for the lantern, “so that I can come and go, and do pretty much as I like about here.”

“But why have you come here at all?” I asked.

“For the sake of a rest and a smoke, and a talk with Jim Crump about his dogs.”

Two minutes later and we had mounted the steps, and for the first time in my life I found myself in a signalman’s box.

It was a snug little place enough, but there was not much room to spare. There were windows on three sides of it, so that the man on duty might have a clear view both up and down the line. Five or six long iron levers were fixed in a row below the front window. The due and proper manipulation of these levers, which were connected by means of rods and chains with the points and signals outside, and the working of the simple telegraphic apparatus which placed him en rapport with the stations nearest to him, up and down, were the signalman’s sole but onerous duties. Both the box and the lamps overhead were lighted with gas brought from the town, two miles away.

“I have been wanting to see you for the last two or three weeks, Mr. Harry,” said Crump, a well-built man of thirty, with clear resolute eyes and a firm-set mouth.

“Ay, ay. What’s the game now, Crump? Got some more of that famous tobacco?”

“Something better than the tobacco, Mr. Harry. I’ve got a bull terrier pup for you. Such a beauty!”

“The dickens you have!” cried Harry, his eyes all a-sparkle with delight. “Crump, you are a brick. A bull terrier pup is the very thing I’ve been hankering after for the last three months. Have you got it here?”

“No, it’s at home. You see, I didn’t know that you were coming to-night.”

Harry’s countenance fell. “That’s a pity now, isn’t it?”

“It don’t rain near so fast as it did,” said Crump, “and if you would like to take the pup with you, I’ll just run home and fetch it. I can go there and back in twenty minutes. It’s agen the rules to leave my box, I know, and I wouldn’t leave it for anybody but you; and not even for you, Mr. Harry, if I didn’t know that you knew how to work the levers and the telly a’most as well as I do myself. Besides all that, there will be nothing either up or down till twelve thirty. What say you, sir?”

“I say go by all means. Crump. You may depend on my looking well after the signals while you are away.”

“Right you are, sir.” And Crump proceeded to pull on his overcoat. “I wish I could make you more comfortable, sir,” said Crump to me. “But this is only a roughish place.”

Harry and I sat down on a sort of bunk or locker at the back of the box. Harry produced his flask, which he had filled with brandy before leaving the hotel. Crump declined any of the proffered spirit, but accepted a cigar. Then he pulled up the collar of his coat and went. In the pauses of our talk we could hear the moaning of the telegraph wires outside as the invisible fingers of the wind touched them in passing.

“This is Ravenholme Junction,” said Harry to me.

“Is it, indeed? Much obliged for the information,” I answered drily.

“About two years ago a terrible accident happened close to this spot. No doubt you read about it at the time.”

“Possibly so. But if I did, the facts have escaped my memory.”

“The news was brought to the Grange, and I was on the spot in less than three hours after the smash. I shall never forget what I saw that night,” He smoked in grave silence for a little while, and then he spoke again. “I don’t know whether you are acquainted with the railway geography of this district, but Ravenholme—I am speaking of the village, which is nearly two miles away—is on a branch line, which diverges from the main line some six miles north of this box, and after zigzagging among various busy townships and hamlets, joins the main line again about a dozen miles south of the point where it diverged; thus forming what is known as the Ravenholme Loop Line. None of the main line trains run over the loop: Passengers from it going to any place on the main line have to change from the local trains at either the north or south junction, according to the direction they intend to travel.”

I wondered why he was telling this.

“You will understand from this that the junction where we are now is rather an out-of-the-way spot—out of the way, that is, of any great bustle of railway traffic. It forms, in fact, the point of connection between the Ravenholme Loop and a single line of rails which turns off to the left about a hundred yards from here, and gives access to a cluster of important collieries belonging to Lord Exbrooke; and the duty of Crump is, by means of his signals, to guard against the possibility of a collision between the coal trains coming off the colliery line and the ordinary trains passing up and down the loop. You will readily comprehend that, at a quiet place like this, a signalman has not half the work to do, nor half the responsibility to labour under, of a man in a similar position at some busy junction on the main line. In fact, a signalman at Ravenholme Junction may emphatically be said to have an easy time of it.”

I nodded.

“Some two years ago, however, it so fell out that an abutment of one of the bridges on the main line was so undermined by heavy floods that instructions had to be given for no more trains to pass over it till it had been thoroughly repaired. In order to prevent any interruption of traffic, it was decided that till the necessary repairs could be effected all main line trains should work, for the time being, over the Ravenholme Loop. As it was arranged so it was carried out.”

“Well?”

“The signalman at that time in charge of this box was named Dazeley—a shy, nervous sort of man, as I have been told, lacking in self-confidence, and not to be depended upon in any unforeseen emergency. Such as he was, however, he had been at Ravenholme for three years, and had always performed the duties of his situation faithfully and well. As soon as the main line trains began to travel by the new route, another man was sent from head-quarters to assist Dazeley—there had been no night-work previously. The men came on duty turn and turn about, twelve hours on and twelve hours off, the man who was on by day one week being on by night the following week.”

“Go on.”

“It is said that Dazeley soon began to look worn and depressed, and that he became more nervous and wanting in self-confidence than ever. Be that as it may, he never spoke a complaining word to anyone, but went on doing his duty in the silent depressed way habitual with him. One morning when he was coming off duty—it was his turn for night-work that week—his mate was taken suddenly ill and was obliged to go home again. There was no help for it: Dazeley was obliged to take the sick man’s place for the day. When evening came round, his mate sent word that he was somewhat better, but not well enough to resume work before morning; so Dazeley had to take his third consecutive ‘spell’ of twelve hours in the box. You see, Ravenholme is a long way from head-quarters, and in any case it would have taken some time to get assistance; besides which, Dazeley expected that a few hours at the very most would see his mate thoroughly recovered. So nothing was said or done.”

I was growing interested.

“The night mail from south to north was timed to pass Ravenholme Junction, without stopping, at 11.40. On the particular night to which we now come—the night of the accident—it is supposed that poor Dazeley, utterly worn out for want of rest, had lain down for a minute or two on this very bunk, and had there dropped off to sleep, his signals, as was usual at that hour, standing at ‘all clear.’ Had he remained asleep till after the mail had passed all would have been well, everything being clear for its safe transit past the junction; but unfortunately the night was somewhat foggy, and the engine-driver, not being able to see the lamps at the usual distance, blew his whistle loudly. Roused by the shrill summons, Dazeley, as it is supposed, started suddenly to his feet, and his brain being still muddled with sleep, he grasped one of the familiar levers, and all unconscious of what he was doing, he turned the mail train on to the single line that led to the collieries.”

“Oh!”

“The consequences were terrible. Some two or three hundred yards down the colliery line a long coal train was waiting for the mail to pass before proceeding on its journey. Into this train the mail dashed at headlong speed. Two people were killed on the spot, and twenty or thirty more or less hurt.”

“How dreadful!”

“When they came to look for Dazeley he was not to be found. Horror-stricken at the terrible consequences of his act, he had fled. A warrant for his arrest was obtained. He was found four days afterwards in a wood, hanging to the bough of a tree, dead. One of his hands clasped a scrap of paper on which a few half-illegible words had been scrawled, the purport of which was that after what had happened he could no longer bear to live.”

“A sad story, truly,” I said, as Harry finished. “It seems to me that the poor fellow was to be pitied more than blamed.”

“Crump’s twenty minutes are rather long ones,” said Harry, as he looked at his watch. “It is now thirty-eight minutes past eleven. No chance of getting home till long after midnight.”

The rain was over and the wind had gone with it. Not a sound was audible save now and again the faint moaning of the telegraph wires overhead. Harry crossed to the window and opened one of the three casements. “A breath of fresh air will be welcome,” he said. “The gas makes this little place unbearable.” Having opened the window he came back again and sat down beside me on the bunk.

Hardly had Harry resumed his seat, when all at once the gas sank down as though it were going out, but next moment it was burning as brightly as before. An icy shiver ran through me from head to foot. I turned my head to glance at Harry, and as I did so I saw, to my horror, that we were no longer alone. There had been but two of us only a moment before: the door had not been opened, yet now we were three. Sitting on a low wooden chair close to the levers, and with his head resting on them, was a stranger, to all appearance fast asleep!

I never before experienced the feeling of awful dread that crept over me at that moment, and I hope never to do so again. I knew instinctively that the figure before me was no corporeal being, no creature of flesh and blood like ourselves. My heart seemed to contract, my blood to congeal: my hands and feet turned cold as ice: the roots of my hair were stirred with a creeping horror that I had no power to control. I could not move my eyes from that sleeping figure. It was Dazeley come back again: a worn, haggard-looking man, restless, and full of nervous twitchings even in his sleep.

“Listen!” said Harry, almost inaudibly, to me. I wanted to look at him, I wanted to see whether he was affected in the same way that I was, but for the life of me I could not turn my eyes away from that sleeping phantom.

Listening as he bade me, I could just distinguish the first low dull murmur made by an on-coming train while it is still a mile or more away. It was a murmur that grew and deepened with every second, swelling gradually into the hoarse inarticulate roar of an express train coming towards us at full speed. Suddenly the whistle sounded its loud, shrill, imperative summons. For one moment I tore my eyes away from the sleeping figure. Yonder, a quarter, or it might be half a mile away, but being borne towards us in a wild rush of headlong fury, was plainly visible the glowing Cyclopean eye of the coming train. Still the whistle sounded, painful, intense—agonised, one might almost fancy.

Louder and louder grew the heavy thunderous beat of the train. It was close upon us now. Suddenly the sleeping figure started to its feet—pressed its hands to its head for a moment as though lost in doubt—gave one wild, frenzied glance round—and then seizing one of the levers with both hands, pulled it back and there held it.

A sudden flash—a louder roar—and the phantom train had passed us and was plunging headlong into the darkness beyond. The figure let go its hold of the lever, which fell back to its original position. As it did so, a dreadful knowledge seemed all at once to dawn on its face. Surprise, horror, anguish unspeakable—all were plainly depicted on the white, drawn features of the phantom before me. Suddenly it flung up its arms as if in wild appeal to Heaven, then sank coweringly on its knees, and buried its face in both its hands with an expression of misery most profound.

Next moment the gas gave a flicker as though it were going out, and when I looked again Harry and I were alone. The phantom of the unhappy signalman had vanished: the noise of the phantom train had faded into silence. No sound was audible save the unceasing monotone of the electric wires above us. Harry was the first to break the spell.

“To-day is the eighth of September,” he said, “and it was on the eighth of September, two years ago, that the accident happened. I had forgotten the date till this moment.”

At this instant the door opened, and in came Jim Crump with the puppy under his arm. Struck with something in our faces he looked from one to the other of us, and did not speak for a few seconds. “Here be the pup, sir,” he said at last, “and a reg’lar little beauty I call her.”

“Was it not two years ago this very night that the accident took place?” asked Harry, as he took the puppy out of Crump’s arms into his own.

Crump reflected for a few moments. “Yes, sir, that it was, though I’d forgotten it. It was on the eighth of September. I ought to know, because it was on that very night my youngster was born.”

“Were you signalman here on the eighth of September last year—the year after the accident?”

“No, sir, a man of the name of Moffat was here then. I came on the twentieth of September. Moffat was ordered to be moved. They said he had gone a little bit queer in his head. He went about saying that Dazeley’s ghost had shown itself to him in this very box, and that he saw and heard a train come past that wasn’t a train, and I don’t know what bosh; so it was thought best to remove him.”

“We thought just now—my friend and I—that we heard a train coming,” said Harry as he gently stroked the puppy. “Did you hear anything as you came along?”

“Nothing whatever, sir. Had a train been coming I must have heard it, because I walked from my house up the line. Besides, there’s no train due yet for some time.”

Harry glanced at me. He was evidently not minded to enlighten Crump as to anything we had seen or heard.

Five minutes later we left, carrying the dog with us. Whether or not Harry said anything to his father I don’t know. This, however, I do know, that within six months from that time certain alterations were made on the line which necessitated the removal of the signalman’s box at Ravenholme Junction to a point half a mile further south. But I have never visited it since that memorable night.

Snatched from the Brink

(Jun. 1878)

Time—five o’clock on a sultry September afternoon; the air is close and oppressive, the sky covered with clouds that threaten storm. Scene—the pleasant shady flower-scented drawing-room of a pretty, old-fashioned house in a suburban road just outside the town of Leamington.

The room has two occupants, one of whom—the middle-aged lady presiding at a dainty little “five o’clock tea” table—is the present writer, Miss Catherine Dane. The tall, dark-eyed girl in white, who stands at the open lawn window, is my niece Sidney, the motherless child of my brother Colonel Dane, now in India, but shortly expected home on sick leave.

“Don’t you want any tea, Sidney?”

Sidney is in a brown study, and I have to ask the question twice before she comes to the surface with a start.

“Tea? oh, is it ready?” she answers absently, and moving from the window, subsides into a chair near the table. “I was looking for the postman. He is late this afternoon.”

“Do you expect a letter from India by the mail that is just in?”

“Yes, I daresay papa will write.”

“We shall have him with us before Christmas, I suppose?”

“I suppose so,” she assented.

Her tone was certainly not one of joyful anticipation, and the words were followed by a suppressed sigh. It pained but did not surprise me to hear it, for I had discovered long ago that Sidney dreaded her father’s return, though for what reason I could not even conjecture. The girl was almost as much a stranger to me now as she had been six months before, when first I received her beneath my roof. My brother had written to me requesting me to take charge of her till he returned to England, as her health required immediate change of climate. I readily consented, but soon found it was no light responsibility I had accepted; I had neither power nor influence over the haughty, headstrong girl, who knew no law but her own will, who accepted homage as a right, and repelled sympathy as an impertinence. In spite of her faults, however, I had learned to love my niece, and her waywardness and caprice only served to add compassion to my affection: for some instinct told me that they were but the outward signs of a deeper ill, a heart oppressed by some hidden trouble, and a nature at war with itself.

What could the trouble be? Anxiously I asked myself the question as, after hearing that significant sigh, I watched her clouded face. But the beautiful face kept her secret and told me nothing.

A sound of carriage-wheels approaching swiftly along the road caused Sidney to desist from her idle occupation of breaking a biscuit into fragments, and look towards the window. The next moment there swept into sight a pony carriage-and-pair containing three ladies, two young, and one (who was driving) very youthfully dressed—and a gentleman, a handsome soldierly looking man of thirty, with bold dark eyes, and a sweeping tawny moustache. The ladies, catching sight of Sidney, kissed their hands to her effusively, and the gentleman raised his hat, as the carriage dashed by and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

“Were those the Lightwoods?” I inquired, as she turned from the window, her cheeks flushed, her eyes unusually bright.

“Yes, they have been to the flower-show. Mrs. Lightwood has a rival exhibition in her bonnet. Did you notice it?”

“Her brother, Captain Forrester, is staying with them still, I see.”

Sidney only nodded in reply as she handed me her cup to be replenished.

“How long are they likely to remain at Leamington?” I asked.

“I don’t know I’m sure. Mrs. Lightwood took a house for three months, I believe; they have been here more than two already.”

“Did you know them very intimately in India?”

“Well, yes, I used to visit them very often when they were living at Madras. The widow, Mrs. Lightwood, has always professed a great affection for me, though I fancy she— But that reminds me, Aunt Catherine,” she broke off, leaving the first sentence unfinished; “they are going to have a little dance to-night, and they have invited me.”

“Again!” I exclaimed. “Do you know that you have been there no fewer than six times during the last fortnight?”

“What an accurate reckoning you have kept!” she returned laughingly. “Well, to-night will be the seventh time, for I am going—with your permission of course.”

The last clause was so evidently pro forma that it would have been almost more gracious to have omitted it altogether.

“I wish Mrs. Lightwood would not keep up her ‘little dances’ to such a late, or rather, early hour,” I replied; “and I am sure, Sidney, that so much waltzing is not good for you, with your weak heart.”

“Particularly when my partner is Captain Forrester,” she added, looking at me with a half smile. “You had better be candid. Aunt Catherine; you know it is not the dance, but the partner you object to.”

“I object to both; the partner chiefly, perhaps.”

“I wonder why?” drawled Sidney, lazily examining her fan. I was provoked into answering plainly.

“Because he is a bold, unprincipled, dangerous man. That is why, Sidney.”

She flushed, and seemed about to make an angry reply; but, thinking better of it, answered coldly, after a pause: “I daresay he is very much like other men: neither better nor worse.”

“I should be sorry to think my circle of acquaintance included many men of his stamp,” I observed.

“Oh! I am sure it does not,” she returned, with a little laugh; “you may be quite easy on that score, Aunt Catherine.”

“And I should be still more sorry,” I went on, ignoring her remark, “if I thought that he could ever be more to you than a mere acquaintance. Heaven help you, Sidney, if you bestowed your heart on such a man!”

She shut her fan, and looked up with a sudden change of expression.

“Bestow my heart!” she echoed, in a tone half angry, half scornful. “You talk as if hearts were ‘bestowed,’ like prizes, as a reward for merit; as if love were a thing to be given or withheld, subject to the approval of parents or guardians. It does not occur to you that a woman’s heart may be won in spite of her?—that she may love against her will, against her judgment, against her duty—”

She stopped abruptly, and the colour rushed over her face.

“What rubbish we are talking!” she concluded with a shrug, as she rose and returned to her old post at the window. A few minutes afterwards the front gate closed behind the postman, who advanced up the winding drive towards the house. Somewhat to my surprise—for she had her full share of Anglo-Indian laziness—Sidney gave herself the trouble to go and meet him, took a letter from his hand, and returned slowly across the lawn, a tall, elegant figure, in trailing summer draperies, with a yellow rose in her dark hair.

“A letter for you. Aunt Cathie,” she said, “with the Southampton postmark. It— why, good heavens!”

The words died on her lips; she stood looking blankly at the letter in her hand.

“What is it?” I asked. “What is the matter?”

“It is papa’s handwriting!” she answered, in a whisper of amazement.

“And the Southampton postmark!” I exclaimed, and hastily tore it open, Sidney looking over my shoulder as I read.

Radley’s Hotel, Southampton,
September 6th.

“My Dear Catherine—You will see, from the heading of this, that I am already in England. I landed from the Cheetah last night, and I should have been with you to-day (Tuesday); but my old wound in the shoulder has broken out afresh, and will keep me prisoner here, the doctor says, for the next forty-eight hours at least, if not for several days. I have just learned that the Lightwoods are living in Leamington, and that Mrs. L.’s brother, that scamp, Fred Forrester, is with them. Sidney has never mentioned their names in her letters to me; but I have no doubt that, in spite of my express prohibition, she has renewed the acquaintance which was broken off before she left India. I have now a still stronger reason to object to the intimacy: and I trust to you, Catherine, to see that she does not set foot in their house, or hold any sort of communication with them, till I come. I reserve explanations until I see you. In the meantime, believe me,

“Your affectionate brother,

“Francis Dane.”

I folded the letter in silence, and looked at Sidney, who stood motionless, gazing straight before her.

“So for the last three months you have been deceiving both your father and me!” I said in a tone I had never used to her before. “You have concealed from him that these people were here, and from me that he had forbidden the acquaintance. I am disappointed in you, Sidney.”

“Most people are when they know me well,” she replied, with a faltering attempt at a laugh; and, leaning her elbow on the chimneypiece, she let her forehead fall on her hand. Her back was towards me, but I could see her face in the glass, and there was a look of anxious trouble upon it that smote me with sudden pity.

“My child,” I said impulsively, putting my arm about her waist, “why will you not confide in me? You have some secret trouble; let me share it; you would surely find it a relief. Will you not trust me, Sidney?”

She glanced into my face, then looked down. Her lips trembled.

“I do trust you. Aunt Catherine,” she answered after a pause. “But—but I cannot tell you; it is impossible; you would not understand.”

Before I could speak again she disengaged herself from my arm, and continued, in her usual tone: “I suppose I may write a note of excuse to Mrs. Lightwood? That does not come under the head of forbidden communications?”

“If you will allow me to read it before it goes.”

“Oh, certainly.” She seated herself at her desk, and took up the pen, but instead of beginning to write, she sat for full five minutes with her chin propped on her upturned palm, looking out before her with a face of intent and anxious thought.

“It is getting late, my dear,” I reminded her at length: “you had better write at once.” She started and pushed back her hair.

“Yes, I will do it at once,” she said, and dipping the pen in the ink, hastily wrote a few lines, which she handed to me for inspection. I glanced over them and saw that she had excused herself on the plea of a headache.

“Have you an envelope?” she asked, as I gave her back the note, “I can’t find one.” I left the room to fetch my letter-case, which was in the dining-room. When I returned Sidney said hurriedly: “Oh, I am sorry to have troubled you. Aunt Catherine: I found one after all. There is the note,” and she handed it to me sealed and addressed.

“For once the stereotyped excuse is not a fib, for my head does really ache distractingly,” she added, passing her hands over her forehead. “I think there is thunder in the air. I will go and lie down for a time: I shall not care for any dinner, so please don’t let me be disturbed. If I am better towards seven o’clock I shall go and spend an hour at the ‘Cottage.’”

“The Cottage,” which was the residence of my cousin, Lady Hillyard, was the next house to mine, and the two gardens communicated by means of a door in an ivy-covered wall.

“Do so, my dear. Lady Hillyard is always glad to see you,” I answered.

She paused a moment at the door, turning the knob in her hand: then coming suddenly back to my side she put her hands on my shoulders, and looked into my face with an unwonted softness in her handsome dark eyes.

“Dearest, kindest, best of aunties, forgive your graceless niece,” she said, with a tremulous smile; “forgive me, not only for deceiving you, but for all my caprice and ingratitude. Tell me that”—her head drooped on my shoulder—“tell me that you love me a little in spite of it.”

“My poor child, can you doubt it?” I exclaimed, much touched, stroking the braids of her glossy dark hair.

She lifted her face and kissed me once—twice, and I felt a tear on my cheek; the next moment she was gone, and I was left to my own meditations.

That they were not altogether pleasant ones may be imagined. The more I reflected on what had passed, and the oftener I read my brother’s letter, the more anxious I grew.

He could have but one reason for objecting to her intercourse with the Lightwoods, and when I remembered that she had been in constant communication with them for the past three months, with almost daily opportunities of meeting “that scamp, Fred Forrester,” I felt anything but comfortable.

I longed for my brother’s arrival, and yet half dreaded it; fearing some outbreak of his fiery temper.

It was not wonderful that I had but little appetite for dinner that day.

My solitary meal was soon over, and I returned to the drawing-room, and tried to occupy myself as usual, but found that I was too restless to settle to anything.

The heat, instead of diminishing, seemed to increase as the evening advanced. There was a curious hush and stillness, like the stillness of dread, in the sultry air, broken only by the distant muttering of thunder, and the frightened twitter of a bird, hiding beneath the leaves from the coming storm.

Night “came down with a rush” (as in the tropics) an hour before its time; at seven o’clock it was dark; so dark that, looking out through the open window as I sat alone in the drawing-room, I could not even trace the outline of the shrubbery trees: all was a vague black void.

“Do, for goodness’ sake, ma’am, shut the window,” cried my old servant, Carter, when she came in with a cup of coffee; “the storm’ll be upon us in another minute, and if I’m not mistaken, it’ll be the worst we’ve had this many a year.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth, when the outer darkness was suddenly rent by an awful, blinding flash of lightning which literally seemed to set the sky on fire, and, barely a moment after, the thunder crashed close above the roof, so close, that I involuntarily crouched and put my hands to my head.

Carter screamed, and clung to me. “Lor’ a’ mercy! it’s like the day o’ judgment!” she panted.

“Shut all the doors and windows,” I said hastily. “I will go upstairs to Miss Dane.”

“Better leave Miss Sidney to herself, ma’am, if you’ll excuse me,” Carter replied, in her blunt way. “I went upstairs a minute ago to see if she was frightened, and would like me to sit with her, and she answered very short that she had seen much worse storms than this would be, and didn’t want my company.”

“Was she lying down?”

“I don’t know, ma’am; I spoke to her through the door.”

The storm proved indeed the worst we had known for years. The sky was lit up almost incessantly by the red glare of the lightning, though none of the succeeding flashes were so awfully vivid as the first; the thunder pealed as if all heaven’s artillery had opened fire on the earth, and the rain came down like a cataract, “sheer, and strong, and loud.” In little more than half an hour, however, it had spent its force. The thunder died away in the distance, and the rain abated. I threw the window open again, and admitted a stream of cool, delicious air; then, turning up the lamp, which I had lowered during the storm, I took up my work, and sat down on the sofa.

I had set the door open, so that I could see across the hall, and half way up the stairs, and I kept glancing up from my work in the expectation of seeing Sidney descend, for it was now nearly eight o’clock.

Within and without, the house was profoundly still, and the measured “tick-tack” of the old-fashioned clock on the stairs sounded unnaturally loud in the silence.

I felt lonely and unaccountably depressed, and began to wish impatiently that Sidney would come down and keep me company.

“It is too late now for her to go to Lady Hillyard’s,” I reflected, as the clock struck eight.

Even as the thought crossed my mind, looking towards the stairs, I saw her descending. She had changed her dress for a darker one, and wore a long black cashmere mantle, the hood of which was drawn over her head. Her face, in its dark frame, looked startlingly white.

She came noiselessly downstairs and across the hall; opposite the drawing-room door she paused, and looked in at me, but did not speak.

“Surely you are not going to the cottage to-night, Sidney?” I exclaimed. She made no reply, but passed on out of sight.

Something in her looks and manner made me uneasy. Suddenly a thought struck me that caused me to start to my feet. “Suppose she was not going to Lady Hillyard’s after all? Suppose—” I stayed for no more suppositions, but threw down my work and followed her. She had already quitted the house, leaving the front door partly open.

Going out into the verandah, I saw her walking rapidly down the side-path towards the door in the garden wall. I called to her, but she kept on without heeding me. However, I felt reassured now that I knew she was really gone to the Cottage, and only wondered anxiously whether she had been so imprudent as to rush out of doors in her thin house-shoes.

The rain had now entirely ceased, and the night was as calm as if no storm had ever troubled it, though the heavy rain-clouds had not yet dispersed, and the moon was climbing her way wearily through their dark masses. The breeze blew fresh and cool, bringing with it the rich moist scent of damp earth and grass. It was all so pleasant that I was tempted to linger a little out of doors. I threw a shawl over my head, and began to pace up and down the verandah.

About half an hour had passed thus, and I was just about to turn indoors when I heard wheels approaching along the road. They stopped at my gate, and presently a hired fly appeared in the drive, and drew up at the door; a tall figure, muffled in travelling wraps, alighted, and the next moment I was in my brother’s arms, pouring out ejaculations of surprise and broken words of welcome. After a hasty embrace he released me, paid and dismissed the cabman, then followed me into the drawing-room.

“Where is Sidney?” was his first question, as he glanced round the room.

“She is spending the evening with Lady Hillyard; we did not expect you till to-morrow. I will send and fetch her.”

“Wait a moment,” he interposed, laying his hand on mine as I was about to ring the bell. “I want to have a little talk with you first. Sit down, Catherine.”

He tossed his wraps on to the sofa, and sank into a chair, running his fingers through his hair. “Handsome Dane,” as he had been called, was handsome still, I thought, as I looked at him; but his face was worn and pale, and there was a look of haggard anxiety in his dark eyes.

“Francis, why did you come to-night, you were not fit to travel!” I said, involuntarily. He gave a short sigh.

“That is true enough, but I was in such a fever of anxiety that I could not wait until to-morrow. After what I had heard I felt that Sidney would not be safe till I was at her side. About those Lightwoods,” he went on abruptly; “how long have they been in Leamington?”

“They took a house here about three months ago,” I replied.

“Three months! And he—that”—he seemed to have a difficulty in pronouncing the name—“that Forrester is with them? And Sidney has been visiting them? Good heavens!” He started up and began to pace about the room.

“How much do you know? what has she told you?” he asked, suddenly.

“She has told me nothing. I only know from your letter that you object to the acquaintance—I conclude because you disapprove of Captain Forrester’s attentions.”

“Judge whether I have reason to disapprove of them,” he returned, coming to a stop opposite me. “The scoundrel is a married man.”

For a moment I was too startled to speak.

“Does Sidney know?” I asked. He shook his head.

“He has kept it so secret that his own sister does not know, I believe. I only learnt it myself by chance a month ago. He has been married six years.”

“When did Sidney first meet him?”

“About a year back, at his sister’s house, in Madras. He was in a regiment of Native Foot, and was over head and ears in debt, thanks to high play and fast living. Everyone knew that he was on the look-out for ‘a pretty fool with money,’ to retrieve his fortunes—and the fool he selected was my daughter. He must have bewitched the girl, I think, for she has sense enough in other matters. Before I even suspected what was going on, he had induced her to engage herself to him, and had almost succeeded in persuading her into a clandestine marriage, knowing well that I should never give my consent.”

“But he was married already!”

“Just so; but as I have told you, very few persons knew of that former marriage, and I presume he intended to purchase the silence of those who did with Sidney’s money. He was aware that her mother’s fortune was under her own control. Well, on discovering what was going on, I was indignant, as you may think, and I resolved to send Sidney at once to you. I breathed more freely when I knew that the width of the Atlantic lay between her and Forrester. My security was of short duration, however, for a couple of months afterwards I learned that he had sold out, and gone, with his sister, to England. At first I thought of writing to warn you against him, but on reflection, I resolved to come instead. I got my leave at once, and sailed by the next ship—the Cheetah. On board, acting as valet to General Fenwick, was Forrester’s old servant, a Frenchman named Delplanque, who had been his ‘âme damnée,’ for years, and was in all his secrets. Forrester had borrowed money from him, it seemed, not a large sum, but all the poor fellow’s savings, and had given him the slip, and gone off with it to England. Out of revenge, Delplanque came to me and told me something that startled me—namely, that his late master was a married man. He had deserted his wife—a Frenchwoman—long before, and she was living with her own people. Delplanque had himself witnessed the marriage, but had agreed to hold his tongue ‘for a consideration.’ He added that ‘M. le Capitaine’ had boasted he should outwit me, and introduce my daughter to me on my return as Mrs. Forrester. Imagine if you can what I felt on hearing that, and how my anxiety was increased when I accidentally learned at Southampton that the Lightwoods were living in Leamington. Well, thank heaven I have arrived in time. And now, Kate, send for Sidney—or stay,” he added, rising, “let us go and fetch her.”

I threw on my shawl again, and we went out into the quiet night.

“Oh, the sweet English air!” exclaimed my brother, lifting his forehead to the breeze. “How it takes me back into the long past, when we were all together in the dear old home. I had looked forward to having one like it some day, Kate.”

“And so you will have, I hope, Frank.”

“Who knows? I have learnt the folly of making plans for the future.”

We passed through the gate in the wall, and crossed the lawn and garden of the Cottage, where the flowers were pouring out their fragrance into the night.

The servant who answered our summons at the bell, and who was too well trained to betray any surprise at our untimely visit, ushered us at once into the room where Lady Hillyard was sitting, her favourite little sanctum on the ground floor, looking out on the garden.

A shaded lamp stood on the table, which cast a circle of soft but brilliant light on the books and papers, leaving in half obscurity the silvered hair and delicate high-bred features of the mistress of the house, who was writing. One glance round the room showed me that she was alone.

She looked up as we entered, rose, and after peering doubtfully for a moment at my companion, came forward to him with both hands outstretched.

“Francis, my dear cousin, welcome home!”

He took her hands, but his reply was uttered mechanically, and as his eyes wandered round the room I saw in them the same misgiving that had just struck chill to my own heart.

“Where is Sidney?” he asked, hoarsely. She withdrew her hands, and looked in surprise from his face to mine.

“I do not know,” she answered; “she is not here; I have not seen her to-day.”

“Lucy, Lucy,” I cried, hardly knowing in my agitation what I said; “she must be here—she came here; I saw her go—”

“My dear,” she answered gently, “Sidney is not here, she has not been here to-night. Compose yourself, and tell me what has happened.”

“She said she should spend the evening with you. I saw her pass through the garden-door at about eight o’clock, and she has not returned.”

“Is the gate of your drive locked?” demanded Francis, turning to my cousin.

“No, not yet.”

“That explains it: she came into your garden by one entrance, and left it by the other,” he said, in a tone so unnaturally calm that I looked at him in wonder.

His face was white to the lips, and there was an expression upon the features that made them seem unfamiliar to me.

“Lucy,” he continued, “you have a carriage, I think? will you have it brought round at once, without a moment’s delay?”

She glanced at him uneasily, but immediately assented, and left the room to give the order.

He stood, with folded arms, looking down. I touched his shoulder.

“Frank, if we find them, you—you will not be harsh with Sidney?—promise me,” I pleaded. “Poor child! her fault brings its own punishment.”

He looked at me gravely.

“I will not be harsh with Sidney, I promise you,” he replied, “but I have a reckoning to settle elsewhere.” He walked away from me to the hearth, and said not another word.

In ten minutes the carriage was ready. I sent a message to Carter that we should probably return late, and that she was to sit up for us herself; then my brother gave the coachman Mrs. Lightwood’s address, and we were soon whirling rapidly towards the town.

A quarter of an hour afterwards we drew up at the Lightwoods’ door.

The “little dance” had already commenced; the rooms were brilliantly lighted, and when we were admitted, the widow, in an elaborate demi-toilette of “feuille-morte” silk and amber lace, was just sweeping across the hall, followed by her eldest daughter, Carrie. She was a tall, showy-looking woman of forty or thereabouts, with fine teeth, a made-up complexion, and a false smile.

Expecting to see another of her guests, she was coming forward to greet us with some stereotyped phrase of welcome, when, seeing who it was, she stopped short, her bland expression changing with ludicrous abruptness, to one of very genuine consternation. Recovering herself, however, she extended her hand to my brother, saying sweetly as she ushered us into a sitting-room: “Colonel Dane in England! what a delightful surprise, and how good of you to drop in upon us directly you arrived. You have brought Sidney, I hope. Where is she?”

“Where is she?” he repeated sternly; “that is the question I am come to ask you.” She drew back a step, her false smile fading, and, like myself, my brother evidently read in her conscious face the confirmation of his worst fears.

“It is as I thought,” he muttered: “they are gone,” and his head drooped upon his breast.

“They? who do you mean?” she questioned, hardily.

“Oh, Mrs. Lightwood,” I exclaimed, “you know well that Francis means my niece, Sidney, and your brother.”

“What—they have eloped? is it possible?” she said coolly; “but pray, Miss Dane, why should you take it for granted that I knew it? I assure you it is news to me. I am not in my brother’s secrets.”

“Not in all of them, I believe,” interposed Francis; “you did not know, for instance, that he had been a married man for the last six years.”

The change in her face was something to remember.

“Married!” she gasped. “Fred married! Nonsense, I don’t believe it.”

He took from his pocket-book, and handed to her, a folded paper, the copy of the marriage certificate. She glanced over it, then sank into a chair, her cheeks blanched to the colour of the paper.

“Colonel Dane,” she faltered, in a changed voice, “I solemnly swear that I was ignorant of this. Fred took care not to let me know it. And to think that I have helped and encouraged him to— good heavens!”

The blood rushed over her face, dyeing it crimson to the temples, and she broke off abruptly, biting her lip.

“Undo, if you can, the mischief your help and encouragement has brought about, and tell me where I shall find my daughter,” he returned.

“I will tell you all I know. In the note I received from Sidney this afternoon there was an enclosure for Fred—just a few hurried lines, telling him that you, Colonel Dane, were in England, and would be at Leamington to-morrow, and that she had made up her mind, at last, to consent to a runaway marriage. He was to take the next train to Birmingham, and wait for her at the station there; she would follow by the one that leaves here at half-past eight, and they could go on to London by the express.”

Francis glanced at his watch—a quarter to nine.

“Too late!” he muttered, with a sound like a groan; “they are on their way to London by this time, and once there—but I will follow them; if there is no train I will have a ‘special.’”

And without bestowing another word or glance on Mrs. Lightwood, he left the house. When we reached the station, we found it silent and deserted. A porter who was lounging against the door of the booking-office informed us, in answer to our inquiries respecting the Birmingham trains, that the last “regular” had gone at 8.30, but that a “’scursion” would pass through in half an hour and we could go on by that if we chose. It seemed to our impatience much more than half an hour before the lamps of the excursion train gleamed in the distance. Every compartment was crammed with noisy “Black country” folks, and it was with some difficulty that we found seats in a second-class carriage—first-class there was none.

“It is odd,” my companion whispered, bending towards me across the carriage; “when I took the tickets just now I made some inquiries of the clerk, and he declared most positively that no young lady answering to Sidney’s description booked to Birmingham by the last train. Is it possible that Mrs. Lightwood has deceived us?”

I did not know what to think; it was all dark to me; dark as the wide vague scene through which we were rushing.

As I sat, looking out into the gloom, Sidney’s face as I had seen it last, pale and grave and calm, rose before me with strange vividness, and would not be dismissed.

We did not exchange another word till, on emerging from a long tunnel, we found ourselves suddenly in the light and noise and bustle of the Birmingham station.

“Stay here while I make inquiries,” Francis said, as the train slackened speed, and glided down the platform. “If they have— What do you say?” he broke off, as I caught his arm with a sudden exclamation.

“Francis, look! there is Captain Forrester!”

He stood alone, on the edge of the platform; his valise in his hand, his travelling rug over his arm, looking eagerly into every carriage as it passed. My brother did not wait for the train to stop before he leaped out, and as the other came hurrying up, still searching the carriages with a look of disappointment and perplexity, they met each other face to face. I saw Forrester start and recoil, but I saw no more then, for the train bore me on past them several yards.

When I alighted it was some moments before I could find them in the crowd. At length I saw them standing under a lamp, the light of which fell full upon their faces—my brother’s white and stern, Forrester’s excited and perplexed.

“But I assure you, Colonel Dane, that I have told you the truth,” the latter was saying as I approached. “Your daughter is not with me, nor do I know where she is. She appointed to come by the 8.30 train; as she did not I concluded she had been prevented, and I waited, hoping she would arrive by this one.”

“You had a note from her this evening; show it me,” said Francis abruptly, after a pause.

“It will confirm what I have told you,” the other returned, as he produced and handed to him a half sheet of paper covered with hastily scrawled lines, which I read over my brother’s shoulder.

“Papa is in England, and will be at Leamington to-morrow. He is more than ever determined to part us, it seems. I have made up my mind at last to consent to what you proposed—a clandestine marriage. Take the next train to Birmingham; I will follow by the one that leaves here at 8.30. We can go on to London, or where you will; I trust the rest to you. I gave you my heart long ago; now I place my honour in your hands.

Yours ever,

“Sidney.”

“God knows I would not have betrayed her,” said Forrester, who had watched our faces as we read. “Before noon to-morrow she would have been my wife, and—”

“Who would have been the witness to this marriage?” questioned my brother, looking him full in the face. “Delplanque’s successor?”

He started, and reddened to the roots of his hair, more, as it seemed, with the sudden surprise than any other emotion.

“Delplanque is an infernal traitor,” he muttered, looking down.

“Like master, like man,” was the bitter retort.

“But if Sidney is not with you, where can she be?” I exclaimed anxiously; “she is not at home.”

A vague dread of I knew not what was beginning to creep over me.

“Francis, let us go back at once; ask when the next train leaves,” I urged.

“Allow me to ascertain for you,” said Forrester. He hurried away, and returned in a few moments with the information that the next train was the midnight express. After a slight hesitation, he turned to Francis and added: “I shall hold myself at your disposition, Colonel Dane, for the next week, should you require satisfaction. That is my London address.” He handed my brother a card, which the latter tore in two, and threw away without glancing at it.

“Gentlemen do not fight now, and if they did, no gentleman would fight you,” he replied, with an emphasis which brought the blood to Forrester’s cheeks. “If you had succeeded in your villainous scheme, I would have given you a villain’s chastisement; as it is, I only require you to keep out of my path for the future. Come, Kate,” and, drawing my hand through his arm, he moved away.

The tender, luminous rose-colour of dawn was creeping over the eastern sky when we reached home once more.

In the pale, mysterious twilight, the house, with its closed shutters and drawn blinds, had a ghostly look—a look that made me shudder, reminding me of death. The door was opened by Carter.

“Where is Miss Sidney? has she returned?” was my hurried question.

“Miss Sidney, ma’am? I thought she was with you; no, she has not returned.”

My brother and I looked at each other blankly.

“Perhaps she has left a letter,” I suggested; “let us go upstairs and look.” I led the way to her bedroom. At the door I paused, and obeying an instinct I have never been able to account for, motioned to him to wait, and let me go in first. I entered, but had hardly crossed the threshold when I drew back, with an inarticulate cry. The window was wide open, admitting the chill air and cold grey light of dawn; a small writing-table stood near it, on which still burnt a shaded lamp, and there, with her back to me, sat—Sidney. She was dressed as I had seen her the night before; her hat and a small travelling-valise lay on a chair near her. Her letter-case was open before her, and she appeared to have fallen asleep in the act of writing, for her cheek rested on a half-finished letter, and the pen was still in her fingers. All this I saw at a glance as I stood on the threshold; a dreadful fear clutched at my heart, and seemed to turn me to stone.

“Sidney!”

There was no answer. I hurried to her side. The hand I touched was marble cold; on the fair face I turned to the light was the deep mysterious calm which is never seen on the features of the living. She was dead. Hours before, God’s messenger had come for her, in fire from heaven, and without a moment’s pain, a moment’s warning, she had been snatched out of life into eternity; snatched from the brink of ruin, from dishonour worse than death, from long heartbreak and bitter shame and misery. Even to us who loved her, it was not difficult to say “Heaven’s will be done.”

•    •    •    •

The unfinished letter was to her father, a few tear-stained lines, entreating his forgiveness for the step she was about to take. We ascertained to a moment the time of her death, for the works of her watch had been stopped by the fatal flash, and the hands pointed to half-past seven. And now occurs the question which has haunted me ever since. If Sidney died at half-past seven, who, or rather, what was the figure bearing her likeness which I beheld at eight o’clock? I leave the answer to my reader.

How Georgette Kept Tryst

(Oct. 1879)

It was a fête day at Versailles, and the palace and grounds were crowded with holiday-makers from Paris. A golden September afternoon was waning to its close. The autumn sunshine, low, but clear, lay in long shafts of light across the quaint and formal gardens, and glittered in the spray of innumerable fountains, tossing, falling, splashing, sparkling, on every side. The air was full of the laughing, liquid sound.

The crowd had gathered thickly round the Grandes Eaux, that is, the giant jets in the “Basin of Neptune,” and “Apollo,” leaving the remoter parts of the grounds comparatively deserted. In one of the loneliest of the green and shady allées a young couple were slowly sauntering. The girl, who was dressed with the dainty neatness characteristic of a Parisian ouvrière of the better class, had taken off her hat, in order to decorate it with a spray of ivy, while her companion held her parasol, and watched her in admiring silence.

The sunshine touched her wavy brown hair with gleams of gold, and brought a tinge of rose to the delicate pallor of her face; a face which, in repose, had a look of patient melancholy, as if already life’s shadows had fallen upon it. But when, glancing up from her task, she met her lover’s eyes, it brightened all over with a smile so sudden and sweet that he was dazzled.

“Georgette, how lovely you are!” The remark seemed to escape him involuntarily.

“It is my hat, not my face, you are to admire, if you please,” she returned, with a demure little glance at him, as she put it on again. “Look, doesn’t the ivy make a pretty trimming?”

“Charming; the frame is worthy of the picture. Suppose we sit down on the grass here for a few moments, that I may admire it at my leisure?”

“Yes, let us. I am so fond of this place,” she responded.

It was a narrow walk, shut in by trees and quaint clipped hedges, with grass underfoot, and leaves overhead, green, shady, solitary. Near where they sat was a little fountain, and the statue of a water-nymph, in a mossy marble basin. The murmur of the crowd reached them vaguely, mingled with the rushing of water, and the music of a distant band.

“You love this spot? so do I,” said the young man, as he stretched himself on the grass at her side. “It was in this very avenue, my darling, when these leaves were young, that you spoke the three sweet words which made me the happiest man in France.”

“Did it really make you happy to know that I loved you, Etienne? I am so glad,” the girl replied, letting her hand rest for a moment on his dark curls. “But my love can never be to you, dear, what yours is to me, because you have never known what it is to be utterly alone and uncared for, as I was till I met you, six months ago.”

“My poor little love!” he murmured, raising her hand to his lips. “What a happy inspiration it was of mine,” he went on, after a moment’s pause, “to take lodgings in the dear, dull old house in the Rue des Ecoles—little I dreamt that I should meet my fate under that roof! Do you know that it was your voice that decided me to take the rooms?”

“My voice?”

“When the concierge showed them to me you were singing over your work in the story above. I asked him whose was that exquisite voice, like a chime of silver bells? It was a little flower-maker, au sixième, he told me, whom the neighbours called ‘Miss Nightingale,’ and it was worth five francs a month extra, he assured me, to have her for a fellow lodger.”

Georgette laughed and blushed. “What a compliment from old Podevin!”

“I quite agreed with him, and we came to terms on the spot. I found that my musical neighbour had a face that matched her voice, and if ever there was a case of love at first sight, it was mine, Georgette! My heart went out to you, dear, from the moment when first your sweet, shy, blue eyes met mine.”

“And mine to you,” she whispered.

“Is that true? then why did you take such trouble to avoid me, little coquette?”

“Now that is ungrateful. Was I not—”

“You were the kindest and most obliging of neighbours, I admit,” he interrupted; “but you were as shy as a bird. I seldom caught a glimpse of you except we met by chance on the stairs, and then sometimes, instead of stopping to speak, you would dart past me like a flash of light.”

“My time was more valuable than yours, you see,” she explained. “I work in earnest, while you only play at work. You need not look dignified, you know it is the truth. If you had no other resource but your pen, no rich relations in the background who—”

“You forget that I cut myself adrift from them two years ago, when I gave up the profession they had chosen for me, and turned from the sandy desert of the law into the flowery fields of literature. From their point of view, I have committed social suicide; they have formally washed their hands of me.”

His companion’s face clouded.

“What would they say if they knew that—that you were betrothed to a common work-girl?” she asked, with a troubled smile.

“They do know it,” he answered quietly. “I wrote to my father some days ago.”

She started, and the colour rushed to her face.

“And he—has he answered your letter? what did he say?”

“What did he not say, rather?” returned Etienne, laughing. “You don’t expect me to repeat it all, I hope? Why do you look so scared, child? You know that nothing he can say—nothing anyone can say or do would make me give you up.”

“I know. But—but perhaps it is selfish of me to let you sacrifice your prospects for my sake,” she faltered, looking at him in wistful doubt. “Perhaps some day you will regret—”

“Georgette,” he interrupted reproachfully, “have you so little faith in my love? have you so soon forgotten all I said to you under these very trees, when we plighted our troth?”

“How could I forget?”

“Then trust me, dearest, and do not fear the future. It comes to us smiling, with both hands full of blessings.”

“Ah, do not expect too much from it, Etienne.”

“Well, if it only brings me bread and cheese, and you, I shall be contented,” he returned.

“Contented without fame or riches?” she questioned, smiling, “I thought you were ambitious?”

“So I was—once, but there is no room for ambition in a heart that is full to the brim of love. After all,” he added philosophically, “what the happier should I be for riches or renown? I have set up my tent in the pleasant land of Bohemia, where there is no shame in a shabby coat, where poverty is picturesque, and even starvation has its poetical side.”

Georgette raised her eyebrows.

“It is plain that whoever first said so never felt it,” she commented, drily. Something in her tone made her companion look round al her face.

“Georgette, how you said that! One would almost think that you—”

“That I had known that poetical pain myself?” she added, with a smile, half sad, half ironical. “Perhaps I have. You see I have only these”—holding up her hands—“to keep the wolf from the door, and if work fails me for a time, he peeps in. Ah, he is not in the least ‘poetical’ I assure you, but the ugliest monster you can imagine.”

She shuddered, then broke into a laugh. “You look as startled as if you saw him at this moment peeping over my shoulder. Why do you talk of such horrors, Etienne? let us change the subject.”

Etienne was silent. A curious chill crept over him; a sudden shadow seemed to have fallen on the bright day. There was a jarring sense of incongruity in the association of Georgette with such grim realities as want and hardship. He looked at the sweet, courageous face, the fragile figure, the delicate little hands that had been forced to fight so hard a battle for bare existence, and his heart swelled with pity and a generous sort of shame as he contrasted his easy, indolent life with hers.

He seized her fingers and covered them with kisses.

“Dear, brave little hands! I never loved them so well. Thank heaven, they will not have to toil much longer.”

She smiled, and passed her hand over his hair again.

“So when I share your tent in the pleasant land of Bohemia I shall have nothing to do all day but count my fingers?”

“You will have nothing to do but to love me and be happy.”

“‘Aimer, chanter—voiâ ma vie!’” she broke into melody as naturally as a bird sings. “But do you know that it is getting late?” she added, looking round.

And, indeed, while they had been talking, the golden afternoon had crept away. Shadows were lengthening on the slopes, and in the ferny hollows of the park it was already dusk.

Presently all the fountains ceased, and there was a sudden hush and stillness in the air; a sense of coolness, freshness, moisture; an odour of wet earth and grass. The water in the “Basin of Neptune” subsided into stillness, though its surface was still fretted with ripples like a miniature sea, and the great metal groups of Neptune and Amphitrite, Proteus, and the strange sea-monsters, dripped and glistened in the last rays of the setting sun. An hour later Georgette and her lover left the grounds, and made their way to the station, where a train was just starting for Paris.

It was pleasant to be borne swiftly through the wide, dusky landscape, alongside the sweet Seine, dimly shining in the starlight; past Saint Cloud and Surêsnes, with their pretty villas buried in foliage; past Puteaux with its market-gardens, and Asnières with its flotilla of pleasure-boats, till the lights of Paris began to sparkle round them, the vague white glare of the electric light showing where the Place de l’Opéra lay; the long lines of lamps on the exterior boulevards stretching away in apparently endless perspective on every side.

Then came the loitering walk homewards along the brilliant streets, where all Paris seemed to be sitting outside the cafés taking its cigar and “chasse”—over the Pont Neuf, where they paused to look at the moon in the river, and so into the labyrinth of quaint, old-world streets of the classic Quartier Latin.

It was nine o’clock when they reached the Rue des Ecoles.

As they passed the concierge’s den, the latter, a snuffy old man, in a holland apron and tasselled smoking-cap, put out his head and called them back.

“A letter for you, Ma’amselle Georgette. Came by the midday post. A man’s writing,” he added, as he handed it to her.

“I have no gentlemen correspondents, Monsieur Podevin.”

“It’s a gentleman’s writing anyhow,” he repeated.

She scrutinized the direction with a puzzled look, then shrugged her shoulders, and put the letter into her pocket.

“Perhaps it is an order for flowers,” she remarked.

“For orange-blossoms, hein?” suggested the old man, with a sly glance at Etienne.

“If so I shall not accept it,” was Georgette’s answer.

“Why?” her lover demanded, as he followed her upstairs; “surely it would be a good omen.”

“No; if you make them for others you will never wear them yourself, they say.”

“Superstitious child! You will let me see that letter, won’t you? I shall not sleep till I know who is your mysterious correspondent.”

“Is monsieur jealous, for example?” she asked, throwing a laughing glance at him over her shoulder.

“Not the least in the world,” he protested. “I am only curious.”

“Well, come up to my landing, and I will satisfy your curiosity as soon as I have lighted the lamp. Where is my key? ah, there it is!”

She unlocked her door and entered, while her companion stood outside, looking in at the humble little room whose threshold he had never crossed. The moonlight filled it, giving it a dreamy, unreal look, showing the little white bed in an alcove, the work-table with its pretty litter of half finished flowers, the bird-cage and plants in the window, and his own photograph on the wall, with a print of our Lady of Lourdes above it. Everything was as daintily neat and trim as Georgette herself, and the room was sweet with the scent of mignonette.

“Bon soir, Jaunet! and thou too, Mignon,” said the girl, as she entered, greeting her feathered and furred companions.

The canary responded with a shrill chirp, while the cat jumped on to her shoulder, and purred a welcome. When the lamp was lighted she came towards her lover, who was watching her with all his heart in his eyes.

Her hair, damp with the night-dews, lay in loose curled rings on her forehead; fatigue had made her paler than usual, but her eyes shone like twin stars.

“You look at me as if you had never seen me before,” she said, smiling.

“I have never seen you look so sweet.”

“Thank you; but you say that every time we meet, do you know?”

“Because at every meeting I discover a fresh beauty.”

“And never any defects?”

He took her face between his hands, and looked at it critically.

“Yes; you are too pale, but that is soon remedied. One—two,” he kissed her on each cheek; “there, that is better. Now look at me; let me see if your eyes are laughing as well as your lips.”

They were laughing when she raised them to his face, but the look of passionate tenderness they encountered made them droop with sudden gravity, and brought a still warmer tide of colour to her face.

“My sweet!” he whispered, bending till his bearded cheek touched hers; “it is a delight to look at you; it is joy to love you, and to be loved by you is heaven itself. Is there another man in Paris, I wonder, so happy as I am at this moment?”

“Hush!” she interposed, putting her hand to his lips; “don’t boast of happiness, that is the way to lose it.”

He laughed.

“Another superstition! How many more have you in stock? And now for the letter. Let me hold the lamp while you open it.”

“You will let me read it to myself first, I suppose? No, you are not to look over my shoulder,” she added, laughing and drawing back; “have patience.”

Smiling still, she unfolded it, but she had hardly glanced at the first lines when her face changed. The colour faded out of it suddenly; the light from her eyes, the laughter from her lips. She glanced rapidly down the page, then hastily refolded it, and thrust it into her pocket.

“Georgette!” Etienne exclaimed, “you promised to show it to me.”

“Not now—to-morrow,” she faltered.

“To-night; at once, if you please,” he persisted, his face darkening; “it is no ordinary letter to cause such agitation. I have a right to see it; give it to me,” and he laid his hand on hers.

She looked up at him piteously. “Not now—to-morrow,” she repeated, hardly above a whisper.

He let go her hand, and turned from her, his face dark with jealous anger. She clasped her hands upon his arm, and detained him.

“Do not part from me in anger to-night—do not, my darling! trust me till to-morrow.”

He looked at her a moment with troubled eyes, but there was no resisting the pleading of that sweet, tearful face.

“So be it,” he said, gravely; “you shall tell me your secret at your own time. Good-night, Georgette.”

As he bent towards her, with a sudden, impulsive movement, the girl put her arms round his neck, and drew his head down, kissing him again and again with quivering lips, then took the lamp from his hand, and turned away.

Touched and surprised by her unwonted effusion, he went slowly downstairs, pausing, when he reached his own landing, to look up.

Georgette was leaning over the banisters with the lamp in her hand, looking down at him. There was an expression on her face he had never seen there before; a rapt, far-away gaze that gave it a spiritual look. The moment he glanced up at her she vanished into her own room, and all was dark.

Many a time in after years Etienne saw her in dreams, bending towards him with that rapt look in her eyes, with the shadows around her and the light upon her face.

•    •    •    •

Etienne passed a restless night and woke late next morning, feeling unrefreshed, and with a strange sense of oppression and uneasiness.

It was a gloomy day, with a leaden sky and a chill wind.

“The weather is breaking!” the concierge remarked, when he brought up the roll and cup of café-au-lait for his lodger’s “first breakfast.”

“Yesterday was the last of the summer.”

“The last day of summer.” The young man found himself repeating the words thoughtfully as if they contained some hidden meaning.

It was after eleven o’clock by the time he had finished. He went up to Georgette’s room and tapped at the door. It was not latched, and as his summons met with no reply he gently pushed it open and looked in.

The expression of pleasurable anticipation faded suddenly from his face, giving place to one of blank perplexity and astonishment.

One glance showed him that Georgette was not there, and it showed him something else. All her belongings had vanished. The room was stripped and bare.

He stared round stupidly, trying in vain to understand it. Georgette gone! It seemed like a bad dream, from which he would wake presently to find her before him.

At length, rousing himself from his stupefaction, he hurried downstairs to question the concierge.

“Oh, yes, Ma’amselle Georgette is gone, sure enough,” the old man told him, coolly. “She came down shortly after nine o’clock, and told me that she was obliged to leave immediately. She paid her term and fetched a fiacre herself. The driver carried her box downstairs, and—paf! she was gone; all in a breath, as one may say. But she left a note for you, monsieur; that will explain it, no doubt.”

“Why could you not tell me that at first?” Etienne asked impatiently, snatching it from his hand.

Enclosed was the letter which she had received on the previous evening, together with a few lines in her own writing. He put the former aside without a glance and took up her hurried note.

“Dear love, I write with a breaking heart to bid you farewell,” it began. “The letter I received last night was from your father. When you have read it you will know why I have left you.”

Etienne uttered a passionate exclamation. “My father! ah—I understand. He knew that I should never give her up, so he has taken the surest means of driving her from me.”

“If a marriage with me,” Georgette wrote, “would ruin all your prospects, and spoil your life at the outset, as he says, I must never be your wife. I love you too well to injure you so cruelly, and therefore, though it tears my heart, I must say—adieu! Forgive me, my beloved—and forget me.”

The letter ended there, but overleaf there was a postscript, which had evidently been added on a sudden impulse at the last moment.

“My courage fails me. I cannot, cannot write that cruel word, ‘farewell.’ I must have a hope, however slight, to keep me from despair. Dearest, in two years’ time you will be your own master; then, if your love is unchanged, we may meet again. On the first Sunday in September, two years hence, go to Versailles, and in the afternoon, when the fountains play, wait for me in the ‘Verte Allée’ where we sat yesterday. If I live, I will come to you. Till then, my best-beloved, adieu!”

Etienne read it through twice and mechanically refolded it, then took up his father’s letter—a pitiless letter, every word of which must have gone like a knife to her heart. He did not wonder that in the first anguish of wounded pride and outraged affection she had fled from him, but he determined that he would not accept the separation. He would find her and bring her back.

He went out at once and spent the remainder of the day in searching for her, enquiring in every quarter where she was known. But all his efforts were in vain. Her lonely little figure had drifted out of sight, and was lost in the great labyrinth of Paris. Two long years must pass before he saw it again.

•    •    •    •

A chill September afternoon. The sky was covered with low-hanging clouds, the wind had a wistful sigh in it which promised rain.

It was unpropitious weather for a fête at Versailles, nevertheless there was no lack of visitors, and to one of them, who was slowly pacing the “Verte Allée,” this quiet, cool, grey day, full of soft mist and moisture, had a pensive charm of its own, like a picture in neutral tints, or an air in the minor key.

Etienne was first at the trysting-place: that quaint green avenue where Georgette and he sat to watch the fountains, two years ago.

Two years; what a gulf of time it had seemed before he crossed it, and how short it appeared now, looking back! He could have fancied it was only yesterday that he was loitering under the trees, with that bright, tender face at his side—the face which had guided him like a star through the lonely years to this day. Those years had been eventful ones to him. Fame had come to him, and he was on the highroad to fortune, too. He had left the “pleasant land of Bohemia” and the old nomadic life far behind him.

And Georgette, how had she fared? What story would she have to tell him, he wondered. His heart sank strangely as he asked himself the question.

Not for a moment did he doubt that she would come. He knew—he felt that she would keep her word. He longed impatiently for the meeting; yet, mingled with that feeling there was a vague dread which he could not understand and could not shake off.

He stood near the statue of the water-nymph in its marble basin, looking towards the upper end of the walk, from which he expected her to appear. He had it to himself at present, though figures passed and re-passed at each end of the long green vista, and the usual crowd was gathering round the Basins.

“She said ‘when the fountains play,’” he muttered, consulting his watch. “It is after four o’clock now; will they never begin?”

Even as he spoke, the waters were released, and he heard once more the familiar musical sound—the rushing, splashing, rippling, falling all around him.

Still the walk was solitary. To right or left there was no approaching figure.

A dream-like feeling stole over him as he stood thus, watching, every sense and faculty strained in expectation. The present and the past seemed confused, and both wore an aspect of unreality.

At length, at the upper end of the glade, a woman’s figure appeared. He could not yet distinguish the features, but he knew the shape, the walk, the dress. It was Georgette. His first impulse was to rush to meet her, but he restrained himself that he might enjoy the exquisite pleasure of seeing her come to him. His heart swelled with a joy so keen that it bordered upon pain, and tears rushed to his eyes.

She came slowly on down the walk, nearer and nearer, so that he could distinguish every feature; nearer still, till she paused opposite to him, with one hand resting on the marble basin.

Still, he did not speak; he did not stir. The look of rapturous expectation had faded from his face. He stood as if he were turned to stone. Was this Georgette? with the wan, white cheeks, the hollow eyes, that looked at him with such forlorn appeal; the pale lips, that seemed to have forgotten how to smile?

There was a moment of silence.

She gazed at him as if she were trying to read his heart through his eyes; her face expressed more than he could understand. Was it joy or pain, or a strange mingling of both, that yearning, wistful look? He could not tell. Before he recovered himself sufficiently to speak, before he could even put out his hand to detain her—to his astonishment, she abruptly turned from him, and passed swiftly on down the walk.

He hastened after her, calling to her to stop, but she only quickened her pace; and before he could overtake her, she had reached the terrace round “Neptune’s Basin,” and was lost in the crowd. He hurried to and fro, looking for her eagerly among the groups who were loitering round the Fountains or sitting under the trees. Nowhere was she to be seen. He went over the same ground half a dozen times, always returning to the walk in the hope of finding her there, till at length he paused in bewilderment and consternation, and realized that he had lost her.

What did it mean? Why had she fled from him? Could it be that she had misinterpreted his manner when they met?

At the first moment he had been too shocked and startled to speak; had she imagined that his love died a sudden death when he found her so piteously changed? The thought gave him a pang of self-reproach. He longed to fold her in his arms and tell her that never before had she been so dear to him.

He pursued his search with feverish anxiety, but she had melted into the crowd like a rain-drop into the sea, leaving no trace behind.

As it grew dusk, a fine penetrating rain began to fall, and the throng of visitors gradually dispersed, streaming out at the gates, and along the broad, quiet streets to the station.

Etienne went with the rest. He felt a conviction, for which he could hardly account, that he should find her in Paris.

But where was he to look for her? That was the question he asked himself as, after leaving the St. Lazare terminus, he stood hesitating in the Rue d’ Amsterdam. Then it occurred to him that she might possibly be lodging in her old quarters in the Rue des Ecoles once more, or at any rate he might hear of her there.

He hailed a fiacre and drove across the water to the familiar street. The old concierge, with the holland apron and tasselled cap of yore, was smoking a post-prandial pipe at the door of his lodge.

“Good evening, M. Podevin,” Etienne began; “you don’t remember me, I see; but I was a lodger of yours two years ago.”

The old man peered at him through the dusk, and then nodded.

“I recollect you now, though I did not at first. So many lodgers come and go, you see, like the swallows, in the course of two years,” he said, apologetically.

“And it is but seldom, I suppose, that they come back to the old nest?”

“Well, it happens sometimes,” the other returned, knocking out the ashes of his pipe against the door-post. “For example, there is Georgette Tréville—you remember her? the little ouvrière on the sixth; we used to call her ‘Ma’amselle Rossignol’—”

“Yes, yes,” he assented eagerly; “is she here now?”

“She came back to her old rooms a few weeks ago. There was some excuse for my not recognising her. She was so altered, I thought it was her ghost.”

“Had she been ill?”

“That was what I asked her. ‘No,’ she said, ‘she had not been ill—she had only been starving.’”

The young man uttered an exclamation that was like a cry of pain. “Good heavens! It cannot be—”

The other nodded at him grimly, as he pressed the tobacco down in his pipe.

“You would not have doubted it if you had seen her. She had been short of work for several weeks, she told me; and to be short of work meant to be short of food, you see. It is a common case enough, monsieur.”

Etienne was silent; there was a choking sensation in his throat, and a mist before his eyes. The old man watched him curiously.

“You were good friends, you and she, in the old times. She will be glad to see you again, pauvre petite. She has been ill the last few days with a sort of low fever, and has not been downstairs.”

“But she was at Versailles this afternoon?”

His companion stared at him. “Not likely. She was in bed this morning, and my wife said she seemed worse.”

“She was at Versailles this afternoon, for I saw her!” Etienne persisted.

M. Podevin pushed his cap aside, and rubbed his head with a puzzled look. “That is odd. I have not stirred from this loge, and I can swear I never saw her pass. However, if she did go she has certainly returned by this time, for she was never out after dusk, and if you would like to see her—”

“Yes, I will go upstairs at once,” Etienne interrupted, and he turned away.

A host of tender recollections rushed upon him as he mounted the familiar stairs to Georgette’s door. It was half open, and he paused a moment on the threshold, looking in.

The room was in shadow except near the window, where the rays of the rising moon “made a dim silver twilight,” and showed him—Georgette, seated with her back towards him at the little work-table. She still wore her hat and jacket, and was leaning with her forehead on her folded hands, in an attitude of weariness or dejection.

His heart beat painfully as he crossed the room to her side, and laid his hand lightly on her shoulder. She did not stir or speak.

“Georgette!” he whispered, then gently raised her head, and drawing it back against his breast, bent and kissed her.

Marble was not colder than the lips which met his.

A shudder ran through him from head to foot. His heart thrilled with a sudden awful fear.

“Georgette!” he cried aloud.

There was no answer.

“She has fainted,” he gasped; “she has—only—fainted. She will be better presently.”

He lifted the nerveless figure in his arms, and laid it on the bed; then went to the stair-head, and called loudly for assistance.

When the concierge, and those of the lodgers who had heard the summons, came hurrying in, he was on his knees at the bedside, chafing one of the little cold hands, and trying to warm it in his breast.

“Bring the light here,” he said, abruptly, to M, Podevin, who carried a small hand-lamp. The latter complied, holding it so that the light fell full upon the figure on the bed.

The face was waxen-white, and awfully still; the eyes were closed, the lips parted in a smile of unearthly serenity.

“Oh, God—my darling!”

The cry broke hoarsely from his white lips, as he sank on his knees at the bedside. “Georgette, my love, my little dove! Have I found you only to lose you for ever? Speak to me—look at me!”

But the “shy blue eyes” would never meet his again; the sweet lips were sealed for ever.

“All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow;

All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing.”

For her all was ended, but for him there were the desolate years to come: the loneliness, the weariness, the aching sense of loss which would never pass away.

Ten minutes later a doctor had been summoned, and the little room, was full of horror-struck and compassionate faces.

“Syncope—inanition; defective action of the heart—humph!” muttered the surgeon, as he raised himself after a brief examination. “When did this happen? Who saw her last?”

“I saw her this afternoon, monsieur,” a woman’s voice replied, and the speaker came forward. “I lodge in the next room, and when I passed her door about two o’clock she was getting ready to go out. I was surprised, as she seemed so ill, but she told me she had promised to meet a friend at Versailles. However, she did not go, for when I returned she was sitting at the table there, as if she had fallen asleep.”

“It was the sleep that knows no waking,” spoke the doctor gravely.

Etienne, who had not yet moved or spoken, rose slowly to his feet. “What time was that?” he asked, in a voice not his own.

“Three o’clock, monsieur, as near as I can guess.”

The young man’s figure swayed as if he were falling. He put his hand to his eyes. Awe and wonder too deep for words overpowered him.

The angel of death had summoned Georgette before the hour appointed for their meeting.

Who was it, then—what was it, he had seen at the trysting-place?

•    •    •    •

We are told that “love is stronger than death.” Is it irreverent to believe that its magnetic power might be permitted for a moment to draw back a spirit from the shadowy borders of the Silent Land?

Desmond’s Model

(Dec. 1879)

I

Four o’clock on a sultry June afternoon. The sun beat fiercely on the Tuscan landscape; not a cloud dimmed the burning blue of the sky. The Apennines were dreaming in a haze of heat which softened their rugged outlines; in the valley of the Secchia the river rippled languidly over its stony bed, bereaved of its myriad tributary streams. The grass was burnt brown, the vines were white with dust; only the olive-trees looked cool, with their soft grey-green foliage, vaguely suggesting mist and moonlight.

Dust, drought, and sultry silence, broken only by the cicada’s tiny chirp, prevailed over all the landscape.

At the end of the valley farthest from Lucca a rough, zigzag road winds upwards into the solitude of the hills. Two figures were just now toiling up the steep ascent; not Tuscan peasants, but a couple of Englishmen, in dusty tweed suits, each having a bundle of artists’ traps strapped above his well-worn knapsack. The taller of the two stepped out at a good pace some yards in advance of his companion, singing “Mandolinata” in a musical baritone; the other, who was some years older, and of a stouter build, plodded on stolidly behind him, pausing now and then to wipe his forehead, and grumble at the heat. His pauses grew more frequent as they proceeded, for the road got steeper at every yard. At length, when a sudden turn revealed another long ascent before them, he uttered a smothered groan, and, stopping abruptly, hailed his companion.

“Hallo—Desmond!”

The latter turned. “What is it?”

His friend only beckoned in reply, and, sitting down on the sunburnt turf by the road-side, unstrapped his knapsack, and leaned back with a long sigh of relief. Desmond paused a moment, then came leisurely back, humming the conclusion of his song. He was as handsome a young fellow as you will meet in a summer day. Fair, but sunburnt, with curly brown hair, frank, happy blue eyes, and a smile whose caressing sweetness few men, and still fewer women, could resist. He was dressed with an odd mixture of dandified nicety and Bohemian carelessness. A paint-stained coat and battered brigand hat seemed little in harmony with his superfine linen, to say nothing of the diamond ring on his little finger, which showed to advantage at this moment, as he stood twirling the ends of his moustache, and looking down at his friend on the bank.

“Well, old fellow, what’s the matter?”

“The matter is that I am dead-beat. Not another step can I go up this heart-breaking hill.”

“Is it, then, your intention to spend the night on that bank?”

“It is my intention to rest here till after sunset at all events; unless some good Samaritan with a cart happens to pass by, and will give me a lift.”

“Well, but my good fellow, you must be shockingly out of condition to be so easily knocked up. The fact is, Thorburn—don’t be offended—you are getting fat.”

“Fat!” Thorburn sat upright to give emphasis to his indignant protest. “Fat! it’s a libel. I was never in better training. But on a road like this, with the thermometer at heaven knows how much in the shade—”

“Stop, stop!” interrupted Desmond, laughing. “I retract. I apologise. It is the heat, of course. You see we left Lucca an hour too late this morning—”

“Yes, you were flirting with that pretty American widow at the Hotel del’ Universo; otherwise—”

“How could I better employ myself while you were snoring, you lazy humbug. If you had got up when I called you, instead of pitching a boot at me, and going to sleep again, we should have been at San Giovanni-della-Rocca by this time.”

“Well, if you are in a hurry to reach San-what-its-name, go on, and leave me to follow at my leisure.”

“In a hurry? not I,” Desmond returned, throwing himself on the grass at his friend’s side, and lighting a cigar. “I am quite content to sit in the sun, and let things take their course.”

A pause of meditative puffing.

“How still it is; how lonely, how grand! What a noble purple on those distant hills! One might be content to stay here for ever—‘the world forgetting, by the world forgot.’”

“The world would forget us soon enough, you may be sure,” muttered Thorburn. “A short memory is one of its many pleasing—”

“Shut up, you old cynic, and don’t abuse the world,” interrupted Desmond. “It has its faults, no doubt; but:—

‘Until you can show me a happier planet,

More genial and bright, I’ll content me with this.’”

He sang the lines, and then clasping his hands under his head, watched the smoke curling up from his cigar.

Thorburn gave him a glance, half envious, half admiring, and wholly affectionate. In spite—or, perhaps, because of the difference in their characters—they were fast friends. They had been chums at school, fellow-students at the same drawing academy, and started abreast on the race of life. Desmond had already distanced his companion, but that fact had in no degree affected their friendship.

“Yes, you find it a jolly place, no doubt,” said Thorburn. “So should I, if I were in your shoes, with not a care to burden me.”

“That remark shows how little you know me,” replied Desmond. “Cares? I have heaps of them! I was brooding over one when you hailed me just now. Here we are, nearly at the end of our tour, and I have not yet found a model for my ‘Lucretia Borgia.’ If she doesn’t turn up soon, that great picture, which was to take the public by storm next May, will never be painted.”

“I thought you found her at Lucca. The coppersmith’s handsome wife—”

“A glorious creature; but she was dark, my dear boy,” interrupted Desmond, raising himself on his elbow. “Now, la Borgia was a golden blonde; there is a lock of her hair in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Thorburn answered, drowsily. “Well, perhaps you’ll find her at San Giovanni: who knows? Suppose you go on, and look for her, and if there is a conveyance of any sort in the place, you can send down for me. Pray go.”

“Disinterested advice!” laughed the other, as he rose and shook himself. “Would a wheelbarrow suit you, faute de mieux? If there is anything in the place that will carry you, I’ll send it; but if it doesn’t arrive in an hour’s time you had better walk on. Remember, we are to put up at the ‘Aguila Nera,’ in the Piazza.”

He went a few yards, then paused, and stooped to read the half-defaced inscription on a boundary-stone which marked the point where a path branched off to the left.

“I shall go this way,” he called out, looking back: “it is rougher, but shorter, I fancy.”

“Stick to the road,” was Thorburn’s caution.

“It is the road, unless this thing fibs like a tombstone. ‘San Giovan’ del’—— and some hieroglyphic, intended, no doubt, for Rocca. It’s all right. A rivederci!”

And he was gone.

Having watched him out of sight, Thorburn settled himself luxuriously on the turf, put his knapsack under his head for a pillow, and in five minutes was fast asleep.

The golden afternoon waned towards evening. As the sun declined, deep, gloomy purple shadows spread up the slopes, and gradually enfolded the hills like an imperial mantle. A rosy light still lingered on the peaks, but the valleys were lost in soft, mysterious gloom.

At length Thorburn woke, feeling chilled and stiff, and having only a hazy idea of where he was. Looking round, he was startled at the lengthening shadows, and hastily buckling on his knapsack, set off again. Having a rooted distrust of “short cuts,” however plausible, he kept to the main road.

Soon, the sun’s red rim dropped out of sight behind the farthest mountain range; the brief twilight was quickly past, and “with great strides came the dark.” The sky was soon all luminous with stars; then a ghostly light like dawn spread upwards from behind the cleft summit of La Pagna, and presently out of that light rose the full-orbed moon.

The artist trudged on in the silence and the moonlight, his feet falling noiselessly on the dusty road, where himself was the only living object visible for miles. Once a convent-chime, ringing for the Benediction Offices, sounded musically from a neighbouring hillside, and a little church, hidden among olive woods in the valley below, answered with a single cracked bell. Then there was silence again; the majestic silence of the hills, fraught with solemn meaning.

At length, another turn of the weary way brought him in sight of his destination—an ancient, world-forsaken little town, perched on a rocky eminence, dark against the stars; its brown, sun-baked houses nestling round a ruined citadel, athwart whose rents the moonlight slanted.

Up a steep stretch of road, with horizontal lines of rough stone paving at intervals, like the rungs of a ladder; past a wayside crucifix, with a blind beggar sitting on the steps at its foot; over a bridge which spanned the dry bed of a water-course, under an arch in a massive wall, where a dim oil-lamp burnt before the shrine of “Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows,” and into a crooked, dark, ill-smelling street, where the houses seemed to meet overhead, shutting out the sky.

The day’s work was over, and the townspeople stood about in the arched doorways and on the steep steps of their houses to take the fresh air—“pigliare il fresco”—though it was still hot and close enough in the narrow ways, where there was a mixed smell of garlic and melons and wine and polenta, with here and there a whiff of odours less ambrosial.

Women with white head-gear leaned out of the unglazed casements; men lounged on the pavement playing at “Morra;” brown, half-naked children played and fought in the gutters. Someone was strumming a mandolin, and singing a plaintive Tuscan “Rispetto.”

The street emerged into a paved square, on one side of which stood the church, a quaint, ancient edifice, with a Lombard tower, and an open belfry, where the bats were flitting in and out among the bell-ropes; and on the other, the inn, a flat-roofed, stone-galleried house, with one wide doorway.

The inevitable group of gossips lounged on the steps; the cooper and the baker, and the little barber from next door, and the barber’s stout wife, with a baby in her arms, so tightly swaddled that it looked like a wooden doll. The landlord surveyed the group from the doorway, which he completely filled; a burly, good-tempered looking man, with a large, clean-shaven, olive face, and a shining bald head.

On Thorburn’s approach the conversation ceased, and half a dozen dark eyes were turned upon him, curiously, but not rudely. The men made way for him to pass, uncovering, with grave courtesy, while the “padrone” bowed himself backwards into the house, with a gesture which placed himself, his establishment, and all his belongings at the traveller’s disposal.

The door opened at once upon a great bare sala, with stone floor, frescoed walls, and a raftered ceiling, from which an oil-lamp was suspended by a chain.

“My friend has arrived, I suppose?” the artist said, glancing round.

The innkeeper paused in the middle of a bow, and looked at him inquiringly.

“The signor expected to meet a friend here?”

“Certainly; he went on first, and must have arrived two or three hours ago.”

The other shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating smile, and gesture of his outspread palms.

“I have not had the honour of welcoming this gentleman. The signor himself is the only traveller who has arrived here to-day.”

“Perhaps he has gone to some other inn,” Thorburn began, “though he certainly said—”

“Excuse me, signor, there is no other. L’Aguila Nera is the only inn of San Giovanni.”

And the group at the door, who were interested and attentive listeners, promptly confirmed the padrone’s statement. Thorburn looked perplexed.

“I fear he must have lost his way,” he said, after a pause. “He was probably misled by the inscription on a boundary stone, where a path—”

“Ecco! that leads to St. Giovanni-in-the-Vale, a village two leagues and a half from here!” half a dozen voices exclaimed at once.

“Then he will certainly not be here to-night,” the artist remarked, as he threw his knapsack on the table and sat down. “What sort of place is this other St. Giovanni? There is an inn, I suppose, where he could put up?”

“Ma si, there is an inn—of a sort,” mine host assented with a shrug, as he spread a coarse white cloth over one end of the long oaken table. “Alessandro Jylorelli’s. Not in the village itself, but on the hill-road, half an hour’s walk beyond. It stands on the site of an ancient Carthusian monastery. Morelli bought the land for a song, ruins and all, and built himself a house out of the old stones. Some say it was sacrilege, and that the house is accursed—”

“The man is,” put in the cooper in an undertone.

“Keep thy tongue quiet, Tonio mio,” the host returned, with a grave, cautionary nod. “We know nothing against ’Sandro Morelli, except that he is sullen and unsociable, and that he is jealous of his wife; and as she is a handsome woman, nearly twenty years younger than himself, that is excusable.”

“Bella belissima—la Bianca!” exclaimed the little barber, rapturously. “Per Baccho, if I had a wife as handsome—no offence to thee, mia gioja,” he added, turning to his fat, and decidedly plain “better half”—“I should be jealous as Bluebeard—via!”

“And what handsome woman would marry a snippet like thee?” his “joy” returned composedly, on which there was a general laugh.

“Brava, Caterina,” exclaimed the landlord. “Your tongue is sharper than Nello’s razors. Yes, Bianca is beautiful,” he continued; “but, to my thinking, there is something uncanny about her. She has a frozen look. Her face is like a lovely mask, and what the soul behind it may be, Heaven only knows.”

“She is unhappy, perhaps,” Thorburn suggested, wondering whether this beautiful “uncanny” woman would prove to be the model Desmond had been seeking.

“How should she be otherwise with such a husband as she has got?” demanded the barber’s wife shrilly. “Santa Maria! if he were mine, I’d cure him of ‘jealousy,’ I’ll warrant you.”

“Ay, your face would cure him of that, mia bella,” remarked her husband drily: and this time the laugh was against her.

“Ebbene, my friends,” said the landlord, as he set knife and fork, plate and glass, before his guest; “it is getting late, and as the signor’s supper will be ready in the space of a credo—”

The visitors took the hint in perfect good part, and at once withdrew, wishing the stranger “buona notte.”

The supper was not long in making its appearance. It consisted of a basin of vegetable soup, flavoured with grated cheese, a portion of roast kid, smoking hot, a scrap of Parmesan, on the same plate with half a dozen wizened little apples, and a cup of black coffee to conclude with. Everything that was not flavoured with cheese tasted more or less of garlic. However, a flask of capital Monte Pulciano made amends for the defects of the cuisine, and when he had finished it, and had taken a stroll in the Piazza, where the quaint shadow of the church lay black across the moon-whitened pavement, the artist asked to be shown to his room.

It proved to be a long, draughty apartment with a tiled floor; clean enough, but supremely uncomfortable. However, too used to roughing it to be critical, he soon “turned in,” leaving the lamp burning. Tired as he was, it was some time before he slept.

Fragmentary recollections of the past day haunted him; the hill scenery unrolled before him in an endless panorama; he heard the convent bells; the tinkling mandolin; the voices of the gossips at the inn door. Then his thoughts reverted to Desmond, whom he pictured arriving next morning, brisk and blithe, and debonair, making himself at home in the place at once, joking with the host, rambling about the old town in search of his “Lucretia Borgia,” and incidentally making acquaintance with every man, woman, and child he encountered.

With a smile at the thought, Thorburn at length fell asleep. How long his sleep lasted he never knew. He woke with a start—woke completely, passing without transition from the deep insensibility of dreamless slumber into full consciousness—and sat up in bed, looking round him with a bewildered stare.

Had he dreamt it, or had he really heard Desmond calling him? He listened. Within and without the house all was profoundly still; so still that he could hear the owls hooting in the wide dark country outside the walls of the town.

He sprang out of bed and went to the window; perhaps Desmond was waiting for admittance, in the street below?

Half in the forlorn light of the waning moon, half in the black shadow of the church, the Piazza lay, bare, silent, solitary; with no living creature visible save a vagabond dog, creeping stealthily across it. The town was silent as a city of the dead; in the distance the owls still hooted mournfully with a sound of “Woe—woe!”

As he leaned on the window-ledge looking out, and pondering over his strange delusion, a curious feeling of numbness and insensibility began to creep over him. It was as though a thick veil or cloud were gradually interposed between his senses and the outer world. There was an interval of blank unconsciousness, from which he awoke—into a dream. His wide-open eyes were still fixed on the Piazza, but with some mysterious inner vision he beheld a quite different scene; one utterly unfamiliar to him.

He was standing, he thought, in the interior of a half-ruined tower, which seemed to have been the Campanile of some church or chapel. Through a breach in the walls he could see, outside, a large weed-grown courtyard, with the remains of a cloistered walk at one side, and at the end a low stone house, half hidden by trees. Suddenly he heard Desmond’s voice calling him. It seemed to come, hollow and muffled, from beneath the flooring of the tower, under his feet. He looked round, and noticed for the first time a low, arched door in one of the massive walls. It was open, showing a flight of worn stone steps, leading to a vault or crypt below.

He was not conscious of changing his position, but the next moment he seemed to be in the crypt. It had a damp and earthy odour, and was profoundly dark, except where a faint mysterious light at one end showed him— Desmond, stretched on the damp stones, in a pool of his own blood.

The shock of horror which ran through him at that sight, broke the spell. His vision suddenly faded into darkness; gradually, as it had gathered, the cloud passed from his perceptions, and he regained consciousness, to find himself still standing at the window, with his eyes fixed on the moonlit Piazza.

He sank into a chair, passing his hand over his damp forehead. His heart beat tumultuously; his mind was in a whirl. What had he seen?

Was it only a waking dream—an hallucination—the result perhaps of over-fatigue? No; it was far too real, too vivid! That terrible picture seemed burnt into his brain; when he closed his eyes he could still see it, painted on the darkness; and Desmond’s voice—urgent, imploring, reproachful—rang in his ears; a passionate, despairing summons, uttered in a moment of supreme peril. Had it reached him too late?

The thought went through his heart like a knife. He started to his feet, resolved to lose no more time in vain conjectures, but to get ready at once, and be away with the first gleam of morning in search of his friend. Already the moon and stars were paling, as a faint cold light crept upwards from the east, and by the time that he was dressed the sky was flushed with the lovely rose of dawn.

II

Half an hour later, Thorburn passed out of the gate, under the shrine of “Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows,” and went his way down the steep road, leaving behind him the forlorn little town on its rocky height, dark against the dawn, as last night he had seen it dark against the stars.

Beautiful beyond telling was the scene which stretched before him, bathed in the ineffable brightness and stillness of early morning. The bare and melancholy Apennines, transfigured by the flush of sunrise, looked radiant, rose-coloured, ethereal; like mountains in a fairy tale, or a dream. The valleys were still white with mist, but here and there a rent in the gauzy veil disclosed distant towns and villages; a monastery or hillside belfry gleaming white from amidst woods of olive or chestnut. The swallows wheeled high up in the luminous air; little golden-green lizards basked in the sunshine; myriads of yellow butterflies flitted past, like leaves that the light breeze scatters in sport.

Everything seemed full of life and joy this radiant summer morning, and, in spite of himself, Thorburn felt the influence of the scene. He could not altogether shake off the vague apprehension which oppressed him, but he felt, somehow, relieved and reassured. Out here, in the air and the sunlight, supernatural fears seemed absurd.

The dew was still on the grass when he reached St. Giovanni-in-the-Vale; a squalid, straggling village, with one long, unlovely street; where fowls, pigs and children disported themselves indiscriminately.

On making enquiries he found that Desmond had not been seen in the place the day before, but a little goat-herd—a grinning, white-toothed, sunburnt urchin—had passed him “just after sun-down, on the hill-road, not far from ’Sandro Morelli’s.”

Without a moment’s delay Thorburn set off again.

The road, which wound upwards out of a thickly wooded valley, was little more than a waggon track: dry and crumbling, and strewn with pebbles, like the bed of a torrent. He had followed it for some distance before he reached any habitation, and then it was only a solitary farmhouse standing back from the road, with a few poor fields of maize and corn, and a little grove of chestnut trees at the side.

A man was digging in the field close to the house, and Thorburn approached him to learn how far he still was from his destination.

On being addressed, the other shook back a tangled mane of black hair and looked up. He was a muscular, broad-shouldered fellow, of the type which, in Tuscan phrase, is “moulded with the fist, and polished with the pick-axe;” with a sombre, olive-tinted face, and fierce, haggard dark eyes. His blue and white shirt was open at the neck, showing a massive brown throat; his bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes.

He stuck his spade into the ground, and looked his interlocutor over at his leisure before he replied, nodding over his shoulder at the building behind them. “There it is.”

“That? But that is a farm, not an inn.”

“Call it what you like. There is the house, and here am I, ’Sandro Morelli, if you want me.” And he went on digging.

The artist turned to look at the house, and noticed for the first time that the bough which serves in lieu of sign at the humbler class of Osterias, hung over the door. It was a poor place, roughly built of great blocks of stone which had evidently once served a more dignified purpose. No ruins were to be seen from the road.

“A friend of mine, an Englishman, put up here last night,” Thorburn resumed; “shall I find him indoors?”

The man looked up again, shading his eyes from the sun.

“You are mistaken; your friend did not put up here. We had no guest in the house last night.”

Thorburn started, looking at him in doubt and incredulity.

“But—but there is no other inn where he could have lodged, and when last seen he was close to your house.”

“When was that?”

“Just after sunset yesterday.”

“I was out then; my wife may have seen him pass. You can ask her; there she is.”

The artist turned towards the house, and found himself in the presence of the loveliest woman he had ever seen or dreamed of. She stood in the doorway, like a radiant picture in a dark frame; “a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair.” She was in the noontide of her beauty; her figure full, but not heavy, her small head nobly set above the rounded throat and shoulders. Her complexion was of that warm whiteness which an old poet calls “a golden pallor;” hazel eyes, soft as velvet, looked out from under level brows; rippled hair, of a rare and lovely shade of tawny gold, was coiled in superb luxuriance round her head.

“Half light, half shade she stood;

A sight to make an old man young.”

But her face had an expression which seemed out of harmony with its radiant and gracious beauty; a fixed, inscrutable look, like that which perplexes one sometimes in the marble features of some antique statue, whose legend is long forgotten.

“Speak, then,” her husband said roughly; “you heard the question.”

“A gentleman—a signor inglese—passed by yesterday evening, after sunset,” she answered, addressing Thorburn.

“Passed by?” he repeated; “did he not come to the house?”

There was a pause before she answered. Her husband looked up at her, with his foot on the spade.

“He came to the door,” she said slowly, looking at him, and not at her questioner. “I was standing here, and he asked me for a glass of water.”

“And then?” Thorburn interrogated anxiously. “That was not all?”

“What more should there be?” the man exclaimed impatiently; “he asked for a glass of water, and when he had drunk it, went on his way.”

Thorburn glanced from one to the other, and after a moment’s pause, said quietly: “I have had my walk for nothing it seems. I will rest a few moments if you please, and taste your wine, before going further.”

As Bianca drew back for him to pass, her eyes met his with a look that thrilled and startled him. Fear, warning, entreaty—what did that eloquent glance express? He felt that it was full of significance if he had but the clue.

The door opened upon the kitchen, a quaint, homely place, with coarse frescoes on the walls, gaudy cups and plates displayed on a cupboard, and a waxen image on the chimney-piece. One wide unglazed casement, with prison-like bars across, looked out upon the fields; opposite the entrance was another door, closed. The room was hot and close, pervaded by a musty smell of dried herbs and beans and onions.

The man followed them in at once, and half sat, half leaned on a table under the window, with his back to the light.

Moving like Juno, and looking, in her homely dress, like a queen in disguise, Bianca placed before the visitor a flask of wine and half a loaf of coarse bread.

“Are there any remains of the convent which once stood here?” he asked, as he poured out the wine. “I see no ruins.”

“They are in the court at the back,” the man replied; “only a cloister and the bell-tower.”

Thorburn was raising the glass to his lips. He set it down untasted.

“Apparently our wine is not to your liking?” Morelli remarked.

“The room is close, I feel stifled.”

Obeying a gesture of her husband, Bianca opened the other door, opposite to which Thorburn was sitting, and admitted a brilliant flood of sunshine.

Outside, in the light and heat, was a spacious weed-grown courtyard, encumbered with wood-stacks, oil-presses, and heaps of hay and straw.

At one side was a damp, dilapidated stone cloister; at the end, a ruined Lombard tower.

The artist put his hands before his eyes as if the light dazzled him.

He felt a creeping chill among the roots of his hair, and his hands, burning hot a moment ago, were suddenly damp and cold. Plainly as if it were then before him, he could see the dark vault, the prostrate figure, the dreadful red stain on the stone floor.

For a moment horror paralysed him, but that weakness passed, and left him deadly calm. His hand was steady, his senses quickened, his nerves braced to meet danger in any shape. He furtively felt in the breast pocket of his coat to make sure that something without which he never travelled was still there, then rose, and approached the door.

“Are those the ruins? They are picturesque. I should like to have a nearer view of them.”

“’Scusa,” Morelli returned, “we do not make a show of them. If you are curious in old stones there are plenty to be seen elsewhere.”

“But I have heard that these are particularly interesting,” Thorburn answered deliberately; “that there is a vault or crypt under the tower.”

“Who told you that?” The exclamation seemed to have escaped him involuntarily. He bit his lip, and added hastily: “There is no crypt; at least, I know of none.”

“Perhaps you have not looked for it? Curious discoveries are made in such places sometimes.” He spoke the last words looking the other full in the eyes.

Morelli’s face changed—turned ashy pale, haggard, terrible; and his hand stole to his waistband. But he checked himself, and, after a moment’s pause, said, with a sudden and sinister change of manner to ironical courtesy: “Well, signor, if you are bent on making discoveries, I will not thwart you. You shall see the tower. Come with us, mia bella,” he added, turning to his wife, who was standing motionless in the shadow at the end of the room.

She came forward, moving mechanically, like a sleep-walker; her eyes fixed upon her husband’s face.

“Go first,” he said, drawing back for her to pass. She preceded them out of the house and across the courtyard to the entrance of the tower; there she paused, and stood in the arch, with her hand on a projecting fragment of masonry, while Morelli and the artist entered.

Thorburn looked round. The place was like and unlike the scene of his vision. The general features were the same, but the details differed. The tower was roofless; overhead was a space of cloudless sky, where a flock of pigeons fluttered, white against the blue. Heaps of debris encumbered the floor, and were piled against the walls. No door was visible. As he looked round in perplexity, his eyes lighted on Bianca’s face. With one lightning glance, unobserved by her husband, she indicated a point in the wall opposite to the entrance. He took but one stride towards it, and began to tear away the rubbish that was heaped against it—hastily, fiercely, flinging the stones behind him, regardless where they fell. Behind, deepset in the massive masonry, was a low, nail-studded door.

He looked round at Morelli, pointing to it without a word. The latter approached. There was an ill-omened smile on his lips, but his face was white, and his eyes had a look of menace not to be mistaken.

“The signor is a magician, truly. Such knowledge is wonderful—and a little dangerous. It is always dangerous to know too much.” Then, with a gesture of mock courtesy, he added: “Excellenza! I follow you.”

Thorburn had his hand upon the bolt, but before he could draw it, a voice behind cried, “Stay—stay!” and a hand grasped his arm. It was Bianca. Bianca—so transformed by excitement that she looked like another woman. The stony, apathetic expression had fallen from her face like a mask; her eyes were dilated, and a scarlet spot burned in her cheeks.

“You must not pass that door till you have heard what I have to tell you,” she panted. “Ay! I will speak now, though you kill me the next moment,” she added, turning to her husband with a gesture of defiance. “The signor shall know all—and so shall you. I have something to tell that you do not dream of.”

Morelli looked at her stupidly; he seemed too amazed at the change in her to take in the sense of her words.

“I know or guess the worst already,” Thorburn said solemnly. “I know that my friend lies in the vault under our feet. I believe that he has been foully murdered—”

“No, no!” she interrupted, triumphantly; “not murdered—for he is alive!”

The two men uttered a simultaneous exclamation—Thorburn of joy, the Italian of rage and incredulity.

“It is false!” he shouted furiously, threatening her with his hand; “clever as you are, you could not bring your lover to life again.”

She looked at him with a smile of scorn. “My lover? I never saw him till yesterday, when he came to the door to ask for a drink of water. He begged me—as courteously as if I had been a queen—to let him draw my face, to put in a picture he was painting. I consented; where was the harm? but he had hardly begun, when you burst into the place—you had been watching me, I suppose, as usual—insulted him, struck me, and, when he interposed to defend me from your violence—O Dio! shall I ever forget seeing him fall at my feet?”

She shuddered, and hid her face in her hands. “But listen,” she went on breathlessly. “When I was hiding in this place last night—for I could not breathe under the roof that sheltered you—I heard a sound in the vault below. It was a voice—the voice of the man you had left there for dead—crying for help. I hurried back to the house, got a lantern, a flask of wine, and some other things, and went down into the vault. There he lay, on the damp stones, bleeding to death in the dark. He was conscious, but his mind wandered. He took me for an angel, and said such wild, beautiful things! I bound up his wound, and sat with him all night, putting wine to his lips to keep the life in him. Towards morning he fell into a stupor, and then I left him, piling up the stones outside the door, as I found them. You kept close watch upon me, but if you had tied me hand and foot I would have found a way, before the sun was high, to escape and denounce you!”

With a hoarse cry of rage he rushed upon her, knife in hand. Thorburn interposed just in time; and, placing himself before her, drew out his revolver. Savage and desperate, the man made a snatch at it, wrenched it from his grasp, and pointed it full in his face. Quick as thought, the artist struck up his arm. There was a flash, a sharp report, and Morelli staggered backwards, and fell headlong, shot through the brain.

The first moment of stupefaction past, Thorburn bent over the body, and turned the face upwards. After one glance, he rose.

“Your husband brought his death upon himself,” he said, gravely; “but if you had told me the truth when I spoke to you at the door, this might have been avoided.”

“Signor—forgive me! I tried to speak, but—but with his eyes upon me, I durst not. You do not know what he was,” she added, in a shuddering whisper, with a side-long glance at the prostrate figure—never more to be feared now.

Thorburn looked at her compassionately. “I understand,” he said gently; “I will not reproach you. Come—let us waste no more time. There is a life to be saved;” and, drawing back the heavy bolt, he descended the steps into the crypt.

An oil-lamp in one corner diffused a feeble circle of light around, leaving the extremities of the vaulted chamber in obscurity. Near the light, on a heap of straw and rugs, lay Desmond, with an awful stillness and pallor on his face, which made the handsome features seem unfamiliar to his friend.

“We are too late!” groaned Thorburn.

“No, signor; he is only in a swoon, just as I left him.” She put back the damp, disordered hair from his forehead. “How beautiful he is!” she murmured, with a sort of awe; “like the pictures of the blessed St. John.”

Her touch seemed to rouse him. His eyes unclosed and rested on her face.

“You are still here? Oh, you are kinder than my friend,” he whispered. “I called to him—till my voice failed—but he never came.”

Those words gave Thorburn a curious thrill. “I am here now, Frank, old fellow,” he said huskily; but Desmond had already relapsed into insensibility.

“He must not remain here; but can you help me to carry him, Bianca?”

“Yes, yes,” she assented eagerly, extending her strong white arms.

Between them they bore him up the steps, across the courtyard, and into the house, and laid him down on the bed in an inner chamber—a bed which he was not destined to leave for many a weary day.

•    •    •    •

“Here’s a pretty state of things! I must have been as blind as a bat not to have seen it before.”

It was Thorburn who spoke, and the words were addressed to himself in a tone of vexation and perplexity.

Three weeks had passed away, and Desmond, thanks partly to an excellent constitution, but chiefly to Bianca’s tender nursing, had “healed him of his grievous wound,” and was pronounced by the worthy leech of San Giovanni to be quite well enough to travel. But he showed a reluctance to leave his present quarters, which Thorburn was at a loss to understand, till, on returning from a sketching expedition one afternoon, he was accidentally the witness of a scene which let a flood of light into his mind, and caused him to utter the ejaculation recorded above.

Desmond, white and gaunt, but as handsome as ever, lay on the turf in the shadow of the chestnut trees at the side of the house. Bianca sat near him; she had a tress of straw in her fingers, but she was not plaiting. Her hands lay idle on her lap, her eyes were downcast. Never had she looked so lovely as at this moment, when her face was transfigured by some new and sweet emotion.

Leaning on his elbow and his side, and looking at her with all his heart in his eyes, Desmond was speaking earnestly, passionately; evidently pleading his cause with all a lover’s eloquence.

Thorburn saw her give him one quick glance, in which joy and sadness were strangely mingled; saw him take her hands, and draw her nearer, till her golden hair brushed his lips—then, suddenly becoming conscious that he was playing the spy, he went indoors, and sat down at the table near the window. “H’m—well, if he will make a fool of himself, he must. Certainly she is a lovely creature, and she saved his life, and— Anyhow, I can’t interfere.”

He had not long arrived at this conclusion, when, to his surprise, Bianca entered. There was a look on her face which made him exclaim: “What is the matter? Is Desmond worse?”

“No, signor, he is better,” she said quietly; “so much better that he can spare me now. So I am going.”

“Going!” he echoed; “going where?”

“To the Convent of Corellia. Lucia will take charge of the house till I return—if I ever return. Perhaps, by-and-by, I shall take the veil.”

He looked at her without speaking. She stood before him in an attitude of composed and patient melancholy, her hands folded before her, her eyes veiled by their white lids.

“Does my friend know?” he asked at length.

Her lips quivered.

“No, I—could not tell him. You will tell him to-night, when I am gone.”

“He will be deeply hurt at your leaving him in this way. You must know that he—”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “I know. It is because I know it that I leave him. Signor, he has just asked me to be his wife—me,” she repeated, with a smile of self-pity. “Look at me, and think of it.”

Thorburn did look at her, standing before him in her matchless loveliness, and, regardless of prudence, said what came into his mind. “Your beauty would grace any station.”

“My beauty—and when that fades, what is there left to charm him? I am an ignorant peasant. I could not live his life, or think his thoughts. Sooner or later he would weary of me, and then—then my heart would break.”

She was silent a moment.

“No, no,” she continued. “It is a hundred times impossible! He will grieve for a while, but the world is all before him: he will soon—yes, soon forget.”

“And you, Bianca?”

She looked out through the window, as if she were looking into the dim vista of years to come.

“And I—shall remember,” she murmured, as she turned away.

Old Vanderhaven’s Will

(Dec. 1880)

I

A golden summer evening some fifteen years ago. The shadow of the Belfry Tower lay aslant the sunny marketplace of the ancient city of Bruges, and the musical chimes fell sweetly on the warm, still, evening air, as they played the Shadow Song from Dinorah.

The old houses which surrounded the place, with their quaint “step” gables, carved timbers, and deep-set casements, seemed to have fallen asleep in the sunshine, dreaming perhaps of the days when Bruges was one of the centres of the world’s commerce; when her haughty burghers lived like princes, and the ministers of twenty nations resided within her walls.

One of the largest and most picturesque of the ancient tenements—formerly the Guild-house of a wealthy Corporation—was occupied by M. Nicolas Vanderhaven, who, after a busy and prosperous life as a merchant at Antwerp, had retired to spend the evening of his days in his native city.

On the first floor, looking out on the Market-place, was a spacious apartment which had been the Banquet chamber of the Guild, and was now used as a studio by M. Vanderhaven’s grandson. No artist could have desired more harmonious surroundings. The room, though unfurnished, was a picture in itself; with its painted ceiling, walls panelled in dark polished oak, superb Renaissance chimneypiece, and the sixteenth-century tapestry that hung before the door. Portraits of the members of the Guild still occupied their old places on the walls, but on a panel to the right of the chimney-piece hung a more modern picture, representing an ancestor of the present proprietor, in whose family the house had been for many generations.

The only occupant of the room this summer evening was Bernhardt Vanderhaven, a handsome, dark-eyed young fellow, with moustache and short pointed beard, dressed, with a certain affectation of carelessness, in a quaintly-cut velvet blouse and open collar.

He had drawn his easel close to the window to catch the failing light, and was painting industriously, puffing at his cigarette meantime, and only pausing now and then to cast a half-reproachful glance at the darkening sky.

At length he drew back, looking at his work with a critical frown. Gradually his brow relaxed, and a smile stole to his lips.

“Yes, it is like her,” he muttered; “very like! Just that wistful look in the eyes, and the tender, trustful smile I know so well. My sweet Annette!”

The painting was a half-length portrait of a young girl in the richly picturesque costume of a noble Flemish lady of the seventeenth century; a girl with a delicate, oval face, only faintly tinted with rose-colour; sweet, smiling lips, and softest Hazel eyes, which had a dreamy, “out-looking” gaze that gave a touch of spirituality to her beauty. The young man studied every line of the sweet face as if he had never seen it before. So absorbed was he that he did not hear the opening of the door, and started when a familiar voice behind him said, drily: “I fear I am interrupting you, Bernhardt. Shall I come again when you are less occupied?”

“You caught me dawdling for once, grandfather,” the young man answered, turning towards the intruder with a pleasant smile; “but I have been working furiously all day, and my picture is nearly finished.”

“I am glad to hear it,” was the reply, as, without even glancing at the canvas, the intruder took his seat on the only chair the room contained, unceremoniously sweeping on to the floor a heap of drapery which encumbered it.

Monsieur Nicolas Vanderhaven was a handsome, vigorous man of seventy, with few signs of age about him, save his silvered hair and the thick, white brows, beneath which his keen eyes glittered “like fire under snow.” His chin was square and firm, and his closely-shut mouth would have been terribly grim but for some lines about the corners, which showed a gleam of humour and kindliness. His face was a pretty fair index to his character; shrewd, hard, but not unkindly, and capable on occasion of generous impulses.

“I am glad to hear it,” he repeated. “There has been enough, and rather too much, of dreaming and daubing: it is time you began life in earnest.”

Bernhardt raised his brows.

“I thought I had begun it in very serious earnest,” he returned, with a half smile, standing with one foot on the rail of his painting-stool, and his elbow on his knee. “I have worked hard enough lately to satisfy even you, Monsieur.”

“Worked? humph, well—if you call that work. But who is the better for it? What comes of it all?”

“Nothing yet perhaps, but fame and fortune will come of it some day—at least, I hope so,” added Bernhardt; “and that hope is my guiding star.”

“A will-o’-the-wisp that will lead you into a swamp,” was the encouraging comment.

The young man laughed, and tossed back his long hair.

“Come, grandfather, how can you tell what my chances are?” he said good-humouredly; “you never even glance at my pictures. I should be glad if you would, for you are an excellent judge of painting, though you have such a contempt for artists.”

“Artists who are worthy the name have my admiration and respect,” answered Mr. Vanderhaven deliberately. “I only despise those shallow pretenders who make art an excuse for idleness and affectation; for wearing abnormal coats and beards” (his listener winced slightly); “leading abnormal lives, and being altogether chartered as Bohemians. However, enough of that,” he continued. “I want to have a little serious talk with you.”

The young artist gave a resigned sort of shrug, and perching himself on his painting-stool, prepared to listen.

“You will be twenty-one on the first of next month,” his grandfather began. “You have not forgotten our agreement?”

“No, sir; I have not forgotten. You were to leave me free to follow my own devices till I was of age, then I was to choose between art and commerce; to decide whether I would go on with my painting, or join my cousin in the house at Antwerp, of which you are still the nominal head.”

“Exactly. Well?”

“Well—I have chosen art, or rather art has chosen me. She has called, and I must follow, whether she rewards me or not. I am sorry to disappoint you, grandfather, knowing you had set your heart on my entering the firm, but—it is impossible. I should never be a man of business. I am a painter or nothing.”

Ominously grim grew his companion’s face as he listened, and the lines about his mouth had nothing humorous now, but he replied quietly enough.

“Very good. You are prepared to take the consequences of your decision, I presume?”

“The consequences? I am prepared to work hard and bide my time, if that is what you mean.”

“Not quite. Are you prepared to earn your own living? Will your brush find you food to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof to cover you?”

“Well—not yet, perhaps; I haven’t tried to sell my pictures; but after a time—”

“After a time, when fame and fortune have found you—just so. Meanwhile, you see, like many another ‘genius’ before you, you stand a chance of starving in a garret.”

Bernhardt stared at him in astonishment and dismay.

“I don’t understand,” he began; “you do not mean—”

“I do not mean to keep you here in luxury and idleness, when you have set my wishes at defiance, upset my plans, and frustrated the ambition of my life.”

“What was that?” his grandson interrupted.

“To leave the old firm as I found it, flourishing under the old name, that has been transmitted stainless from father to son for four generations—since the time of our founder, Simon Vanderhaven.” And he glanced at the old portrait by the chimney-piece, which seemed to look back at him with sympathy and approval.

“But my cousin Cornelius—” Bernhardt began.

“Your cousin is an excellent manager, and a keen man of business—somewhat too keen, perhaps—but he is not a Vanderhaven. I had hoped that your father would have been my successor, but he is gone before me. You will soon be the last of the old stock.”

Bernhardt was silent a moment, looking at his grandfather with compunction and regret.

“Grandfather,” he faltered, “I did not understand—I did not know you felt it so deeply. Believe me, I am grieved to disappoint you, but—”

“Grieve for yourself, rather, if you disobey me,” was the sternly-spoken rejoinder. “But I do not accept your decision as final,” added M. Vanderhaven as he rose; “I give you to the end of the month to reconsider it.”

Bernhardt followed him to the door, and held back the tapestry, looking wistfully into his face.

“It would be easy to decide if I had only myself to think of,” he muttered; “but there is Annette—I mean there is some one else who has a right to be considered.”

The old gentleman stopped short on the threshold. “A-ah?” he said, interrogatively. “And who is ‘Annette,’ if you please?”

“She is—her name is van Elven,” he stammered.

“The daughter of that van Elven who died bankrupt a few years ago?”

Bernhardt coloured. “He was an honourable man, though unfortunate. He left a name as stainless as our own.”

“Have I said to the contrary? But he died bankrupt, and left his wife and daughter to live on charity—or starve.”

“They do neither, Monsieur. Annette maintains herself and her mother by lace-making.”

The other made a sort of grimace. “And you propose to make this little lace girl your wife?”

“With your permission, Monsieur.”

“Or without it,” was the dry addition. “You will ask her advice in the matter we have been discussing, I suppose?”

“I—yes, I shall certainly consult her.”

“And let her decide for you,” the old merchant recommended, glancing shrewdly at him under his heavy brows. “I will wager she takes my view of the subject when she knows what is at stake. Women are wonderfully clear-sighted and reasonable where their own interests are concerned. I leave my cause with perfect confidence in Mademoiselle Annette’s hands.” And with an ironical bow and smile, he passed over the threshold, and closed the door.

Left to himself, the young man paced the room with a face of troubled thought. Yes, Annette would take his grandfather’s view of the case, he supposed, though not, as the latter had cynically suggested, from interested motives. It was not poverty she would fear, but the separation which was inevitable if he were cast at once on his own resources. It might be years before he could ask her to share his lot, and he had no right to expect that she should waste her youth in waiting for him.

And yet, to give up the one purpose and ambition of his life: to turn his back on the luminous heights that rose before him, and descend to the grey and level plain! It was hard indeed.

He glanced round the room, and thought of the happy hours he had spent there, in eager pursuit of the ideal; of the fair visions that had kept him company, the hopes that had lured him on. Would love itself compensate him for all he would lose in losing art?

The sound of the chimes roused him from his troubled reflections. He glanced at his watch.

“A quarter to seven! I did not know it was so late. I promised to meet Annette on the Pont du Béguinage at sunset.”

He put aside his brushes and palette, and exchanging his blouse for a coat, left the house and took his way to one of the innumerable bridges which give the old city its Flemish name. He was first at the trysting-place.

He folded his arms on the parapet railing, and looked thoughtfully at the familiar scene before him. In the background rose the tall spire of Notre Dame, bathed in the golden glow of sunset, while the group of roofs and gables at its base were lost in purple shade. The picturesque, irregular old houses which bordered the canal were built for the most part sheer to the water, with little terraces or balconies overhanging it, but some had a strip of garden between, with a boat moored under a willow. Every detail of the scene was reflected in the still water as in a mirror, except where, here and there, the picture was broken by a floating network of water-lily leaves. Beyond the bridge was the archway leading to the Béguinage; the chapel bell was summoning the sisters to “Benediction.” Presently the church clock struck seven; then once more the belfry chimes rang out, softened by distance.

The golden summer evening, the gently flowing water, the softly chiming bells all blended together in a charm that soothed and cheered him.

He took out his pocket sketch-book, and was dotting down the outlines of the scene, when the sound of a light footstep made him turn.

It was Annette. She did not see him at first, and he watched her as she advanced, glancing about her with her soft, short-sighted eyes. How sweet she looked, he thought, with her pretty, pensive mouth and dreamy eyes; those eyes which had always a shade of tender melancholy, even when her lips smiled, as they did most brightly when he came forward to meet her.

Yes, she was worth any sacrifice, he decided. His mind was made up now as to the course he should take.

“Have I kept you waiting?” she asked, giving him a dainty little hand that a duchess might have envied. “I have been very busy finishing some work. Daylight grows precious after midsummer.”

“You try your eyes too much, dear,” he said, looking at her tenderly. “You know they are not strong, and if you overwork them they may fail you altogether some day.”

“Do not suggest anything so terrible,” she said, with a little shiver, passing her hand over them. “Have you been drawing?” she continued, looking at his sketch-book.

“It is only an outline,” he returned, showing it to her.

“The view from here would make a beautiful picture,” she remarked; “you must paint it some day, for me.”

“I shall paint no more, Annette.”

She looked up, startled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he returned with a forced laugh, “that in future I am to be a slave of the quill instead of the brush. You remember I told you my grandfather wished me to enter the business when I was of age?”

“And you have consented?”

“Not yet, but I must. He tells me if I refuse he will turn me adrift; then you and I must part. That is not to be thought of, is it, darling?”

“So it is for my sake you are giving up your art?” she said regretfully.

“No, for my own, because I can live without art, but I can’t live without you,” was his reply, as he drew her hand through his arm.

“And you are quite sure it does not grieve you to relinquish all your dreams of fame?” she questioned, with a wistful smile. “Perhaps after all it would not have made you happier, if you had won it. ‘Laurels have a bitter taste,’ the old poet says.”

“Yes, but a true artist does not work for ‘laurels’ only. The service of art is its own reward. I should hardly care for fame if I felt that I had produced good work, which would live when I was forgotten—as I once hoped to do. Ah well,” he added, with a quick sigh, “I must forget my old dreams, and outlive my old self, if I can. Perhaps I shall develop an unsuspected genius for commerce—who knows?”

He laughed rather drearily, and looked straight before him, as if he were gazing down the long grey vista of the new life on which he was to enter. That look and tone were a revelation to his companion. She realized for the first time what the sacrifice cost him.

“Bernhardt, you will not be happy,” she exclaimed with sudden conviction. “You can never adapt yourself to a life so unsuited for you, in which all your talents and capabilities will be wasted. Your nature must be crushed to fit it. Your grandfather does not understand this, but I do, and I dare not accept such a sacrifice. Tell me, dear,” she went on, laying her hand on his arm, “what would you do if you were free—if it were not for me, I mean?”

“I should borrow a few hundred francs of my cousin and go to Rome,” he answered.

“Yes; you could live cheaply there, and you would have congenial companions, and learn all that the great masters could teach you. Why should you not go?”

“And leave you, Annette?”

“Not for long, I hope. Dearest,” she added earnestly, “I would rather part from you for ever than live to feel that I had been the means of spoiling your life. You shall go to Rome.”

“No, no! do not tempt me,” he interposed, turning his head aside.

“Yes; for my sake,” she persisted. “That you may win a name I shall be proud to bear some day.”

“That day may never come, Annette.”

“Everything comes to those who can wait,” she quoted, smiling, though her eyes were full of tears; “and you would not have to wait long for success; I am sure of it.”

His face flushed and paled; he looked troubled and wavering.

“Well,” he said at length, “I need not decide now. I have a whole month to consider. Let us talk of something else.”

She said no more, but she foresaw what his decision would be, and, bravely as she had spoken, her heart sank when she thought of the coming separation. She had a reason which Bernhardt did not guess for fearing the future. She had never acknowledged to him the dread which had haunted her lately, growing heavier every day. If he had suspected that hidden trouble, nothing would have induced him to leave her.

II

On the morning of the first of July, Monsieur Vanderhaven sat at breakfast in his dining-room, a pleasant old room, the prevailing tint of which was a sober brown, relieved with brighter touches of colour here and there, in a repoussé salver, or Grès-de-Flandres vase, and in the rich bindings of the books which lined one of the walls.

When he had finished his cup of café-au-lait, he touched the bell at his elbow. The summons was answered by his housekeeper, a stately, high-nosed old dame, wearing the cap and fichu of her native province of Liège.

“Tell Monsieur Bernhardt that I wish to speak to him.” Instead of leaving the room she closed the door, and approached him mysteriously.

“He is not in the house, Monsieur,” she said. “His bed has not been slept in, and—and I have just found this letter, addressed to you, on his table.”

She lingered, watching him curiously, as he opened it. He dismissed her with one sharp word, then read it through, his face growing darker with every line.

“So—he is gone to study in Rome,” he repeated, with a sour smile, when he had finished. “Very well; he may starve in Rome. I have done with him.”

He took a vesta match from the inkstand, twisted the letter, deliberately burnt it, and then mounted the stairs to the Banquet-room. The painting materials were gone, but the unfinished portrait remained on the easel.

He frowned as his eyes fell upon it. He guessed whom it represented, and his heart was bitter against this girl, who, it seemed from Bernhardt’s letter, had encouraged him in his disobedience.

A palette-knife lay on the ledge of the easel; in a sudden impulse of resentment he took it up, and was about to cut the canvas from the frame, but as he raised his hand, the sweet eyes seemed to meet his with a wistful appeal, as if in deprecation of his anger. His hand fell, his brow relaxed; he gazed at the fair face with a sort of fascination.

Then, as he noted the execution of the picture, a new expression dawned in his eyes; a mingling of astonishment and half-reluctant admiration. If the lad could paint in this way at twenty, what might he not achieve when his powers were matured? An uncomfortable feeling took possession of the old merchant. Had he been mistaken after all? Had Bernhardt done wisely in disobeying him?

With an impatient movement of the head, he dismissed the unwelcome doubt, and taking the picture from the easel, turned it with its face to the wall, then left the room, locking the door and putting the key in his pocket.

“If anyone enquires after my grandson, you may say that he is travelling,” he told old Ursula, briefly; and from that day Bernhardt’s name was spoken no more in his old home

•    •    •    •

The months went by. Summer waned into autumn, and autumn into winter—a winter of the “good old-fashioned” type; invigorating to the young and healthy, but terrible to the weak, the aged and the poor.

One bitter December afternoon, Annette van Elven and her mother were alone in the little room which now served them as bed and sitting-room both, on the first floor of a house in a dull grass-grown side-street not far from the Cathedral.

Madame van Elven, a fair, fragile-looking woman, who had been beautiful in her youth, and was still attractive, though worn by suffering, sat in a cushioned arm-chair near the stove, while Annette crouched on the hearth, her head drooping, her hands idly folded on her lap, in an attitude of listless dejection. The snow outside was hardly whiter than her cheeks, and her eyes had a veiled look that made them more pathetic than ever.

“How quiet you are, dear!” her companion said, breaking a long silence; “are you asleep?”

“No, I was thinking,” she answered, with an effort. “I was wondering what sort of Christmas Bernhardt would have in Rome.”

“A pleasant one, no doubt. Pleasanter than ours will be. Poverty weighs lightly on him: it is all part of the romance of his artist life. But with us, it is bitter reality,” she added, with a sigh.

Annette did not reply, but her face grew if possible sadder than before.

“Did M. Lebrun pay you for the piece of lace you took to him this morning, dear?” asked Madame van Elven after a pause.

“No; he—I shall have to go again,” Annette answered, hesitatingly.

She dared not tell her mother the truth—namely, that the tradesman had declined her work, as too imperfect for sale. What she had long dreaded had come to pass: her sight would no longer serve for her employment.

“You are tired; I can tell by your voice,” her companion said tenderly, and putting out her hand, she drew the girl to her side.

Annette let her head sink on her mother’s knee, and closed her eyes, with a deep, long-drawn sigh. Yes, she was tired; so tired that she almost felt as if it would be happiness to sleep and never wake again; to give up altogether the weary struggle that grew harder every day.

They were sitting in the same position when, ten minutes later, an unfamiliar footstep sounded on the stairs, and there was a tap at the door. Annette rose, smoothing her disordered hair, and opened it. A stranger stood there; a comely old woman, in the picturesque costume of a Liègeoise.

“Mademoiselle Annette van Elven?” she said, interrogatively, and when the latter assented, handed her a letter, adding: “I have had some trouble to find you, Mam’selle. My master said I was to wait for an answer.”

“Is your master M. Lebrun?” Annette enquired.

“No; M. Vanderhaven,” the old servant replied, glancing shrewdly at her face.

The girl started, turning from white to red. Recovering from her surprise, however, she placed a chair for her visitor, lighted the lamp, and then, returning to her mother’s side, read the note aloud.

“Mademoiselle,—I wish to see you, but am prevented by illness from calling upon you. Will you do me the favour to return with my servant? I shall not detain you long.—Yours,

“Nicolas Vanderhaven.”

“I suppose he is anxious to have news of Bernhardt,” was her mother’s whispered comment. “You will go, dear?”

“Yes,” Annette assented. “Has M. Vanderhaven been long ill?” she asked Ursula, as she put on her hat and jacket.

“All the winter, on and off; it began with a bad cold. But he has never been quite the same since M. Bernhardt went away.”

Annette said no more, and they presently left the house together.

“Please to come upstairs,” her companion said, when they were admitted to the old Guild-house; and she led the way up the broad, oak staircase to the Banquet-room. It was furnished now; a great wood fire burned on the wide hearth, and a Japanese screen shut out the draught.

Monsieur Vanderhaven was seated near the fire, with his back towards them; a tall, gaunt figure in a grey dressing-gown and velvet cap. When his visitor entered he gave her a scrutinizing glance under his heavy brows, and bowed, but did not rise, as he motioned her to a seat.

“Mademoiselle van Elven,” he began when they were alone, “I believe you are in correspondence with my grandson?”

“Yes, Monsieur,” she answered, quietly, though her heart was fluttering. “I have heard from him frequently since he left home.”

“Since you sent him away,” he corrected; “it was by your advice, I believe, that he went?”

“I advised him, as I thought, for the best, and I have reason to believe that I was right. He tells me that he is making rapid progress, and that his pictures have already attracted attention. I believe there is a brilliant future before him.”

“Humph! we shall see,” was the remark. “Be kind enough to give me his address. It may be necessary for me to write to him,” and he pushed the inkstand towards her.

She took up the pen, but there seemed to be a mist before the paper. After one attempt she shook her head, and held it out to him.

“My eyes will not serve me at all to-night,” she said, with a deprecating smile; “the address is—”

“What is the matter with your eyes?” he interrupted.

“I have over-tried them at lace-making. They have been failing me some time.”

“You ought to have advice about them,” said M. Vanderhaven, more gently than he had yet spoken. He had felt bitterly towards her when she entered, but somehow his resentment seemed to be melting away before the gentle composure of her manner, and the patient sweetness of her smile.

“I have, Monsieur. The doctor tells me there is no organic disease; if I could give them complete rest for a time they would serve me for my whole life to come.”

“And are you resting them?”

“I must now—against my will,” she answered, with an involuntary sigh. “I can work at my lace-pillow no longer.”

“And how do you intend to employ yourself?”

She shook her head and made no reply.

He looked at her steadily a moment, slowly rubbing his chin, then dipped the pen in ink.

“You said the address was—”

“Number 12, Via Margutta, Rome,” she answered, and rose, thinking the interview was at an end.

“Wait a moment,” he interposed as he wrote. “I have something to say to you.”

He seemed in no hurry to say it, however. Having written the address, he methodically folded the paper and placed it in his pocketbook, took off his spectacles, and put them in their case; then looked up.

“I have a proposal to make to you,” he began abruptly. “It has occurred to me that I may be able to assist you and serve myself at the same time. I am in failing health, I need a companion and attendant—someone who would not set my nerves on edge as professional nurses do. Should you be inclined to accept the post?”

She looked at him as if doubting whether she had heard correctly.

“Do you mean—to live here, Monsieur?”

“Yes. Of course you could see your mother every day, and I should enable you to give her the comfort and attendance she needs.”

“You are very kind,” she faltered, “but—”

“Am I so formidable that you dare not trust yourself with me?” he asked, with a grave smile which softened his features wonderfully, giving them a vague resemblance to Bernhardt’s.

Her face caught the reflection of his, and brightened suddenly.

“No indeed,” she said, with an answering smile; “if I hesitated, it was because I feared I might not be competent—”

“Then you will come?” he interrupted.

“Yes, Monsieur, and I will do my best to please you. It will make me happy to be of service to—”

“Bernhardt’s grandfather?” he finished; “just so. Then that is settled. Shake hands on it.”

When she gave him her hand he detained it, looking up at her so intently that she blushed, she hardly knew why.

“When are you going to write to this distinguished artist?” he demanded.

“Very shortly. To-morrow perhaps. Have you any message for him?” she asked wistfully.

He paused, apparently forgetting that he still held her hand, and looked thoughtfully at the fire. She watched his face anxiously, reading there the signs of a struggle between pride and affection.

“Tell him I am glad to learn that he is making good progress in the profession he has chosen—”

“Yes?” she prompted, as he paused. He glanced at her wistful face and smiled.

“And you may say that if he is not too busy to allow himself a holiday, he may spend Christmas with me—with us, that is.”

The girl’s heart leaped; a thrill of exquisite happiness brought the tears to her eyes.

With a sudden impulse she stooped and kissed the wrinkled hand that held her own.

The old merchant patted her cheek. “Tut, tut, silly child; save your kisses for someone who has a right to them,” he said.

Two days later Annette began her new duties, and was soon as much at home in the old Guild-house as if she had lived there for years. She was happy in her new life, and her young presence so brightened the house that M. Vanderhaven found himself wondering how he could have endured its gloom and solitude before she came.

The time passed pleasantly to both of them, and every day brought nearer the meeting which, in his heart, the old merchant longed for as much as she did, though he seldom mentioned his grandson’s name.

“Only five days till Christmas,” Annette remarked one evening, looking up from the knitting which kept her fingers busy while her eyes and thoughts were free.

They were in the Banquet-room; Monsieur Vanderhaven reclining in a capacious leather fauteuil near the fire, while Annette sat opposite to him in a low, straight-backed tapestry chair. The old room, with its panelled walls and antique furniture, formed a picturesque background to her girlish figure.

Her companion was staring thoughtfully at the fire, with the newspaper on his knee. Her words roused him from his abstraction.

“So soon? I had forgotten how time went.”

“Bernhardt will be with us on Christmas Eve,” she added.

“Ah! and that reminds me; there is something I intended to do before he returned.” He turned his chair to the table. “Give me pen and ink, my dear.”

She placed writing materials before him, and then paused, struck by the haggard pallor of his face.

“Are you feeling worse to-night, Monsieur?”

“Worse? No, child; I am better, if anything,” he answered, cheerfully. “I was thinking, only a moment ago, that I might yet live to see my great-grandchildren round me in the old house.”

He glanced at his companion, who “suddenly, sweetly, strangely blushed,” and became absorbed in her work again.

His pen travelled rapidly over the paper, only pausing now and then to make an alteration or addition. When he had covered four pages with his clear, firm handwriting, he glanced over what he had written, seemed satisfied with it, and made a fair copy on a fresh sheet. Then he looked up.

“Will you tell Ursula and Jacob that I want them for a few moments?”

She left the room, and gave his message to the two old servants, remaining downstairs till they returned, which they did very shortly, looking mysterious and important.

As she re-entered the room, she fancied she heard the click of a drawer or door hastily shut; but the screen being so arranged as to enclose the hearth, she could see nothing until she had passed round it. Then she found Monsieur Vanderhaven standing with his arm on the massive chimney-piece, watching the burning of a piece of paper, which he had just thrown upon the logs.

He did not speak till she had been seated some moments.

“I have been making my will,” he said, abruptly, at length: “I made one six months ago, in a moment of anger, but that shall be destroyed before Bernhardt returns. By this new one I have left him everything except the business, and that he will not grudge to his cousin. I shall give it into Maître Janssen’s keeping to-morrow. Meantime,” he added, with a curious smile, “I have put it in a safe place, where it would be difficult to—”

He stopped abruptly, putting his hand to his head. The blood suffused his face to the temples, then retreated, leaving him lividly pale. He staggered, and would have fallen if Annette had not supported him. She bent over him in alarm as he sank into a chair.

“It is nothing,” he gasped; “a passing faintness—”

He drew one or two heavy breaths, and seemed to recover somewhat, though his face was still white and haggard.

“Good girl, good girl,” he said, touching her cheek as she bent over him; “you deserve to be happy, and you shall be. You will live here, you and Bernhardt; he will have this for his painting-room again. He will make a name—yes, the lad was right; he is an artist. Never let the old house go into strange hands—I love it. It has sheltered my people for more than a century; ever since the time of old Simon Vanderhaven, yonder,” and he nodded towards the portrait with a smile of friendly recognition, then sat silent, looking into the bright hollows of the fire.

“I am drowsy,” he said at last; “I think I could sleep.”

Annette stood near him till his eyes closed, then returned to her seat. But she could not work. She felt uneasy and depressed. Her eyes dwelt with a sort of fascination on the motionless figure opposite, only glancing away now and then at the flickering fire, or out through the uncurtained window at the bare moon-lit Place, where the shadows of the quaint old houses lay black on the snow-whitened pavement.

About a quarter of an hour had passed thus, when she heard the muffled roll of carriage-wheels approaching the house. They paused at the door, and there was a knock which sounded unnaturally loud in the silence. She started to her feet. Could it be Bernhardt, who had arrived before his time? was the first thought that flashed across her.

Assuring herself that M. Vanderhaven was still sleeping, she went out into the landing, and leaned over the heavy carved balustrade, looking down into the lamp-lit hall. Yes—it was Bernhardt who stood there, laughing at old Ursula’s shrill questions and exclamations, as he dismissed the carriage and closed the door.

Annette’s glad little cry caught his ear at once. He looked up, flung his travelling-wraps on to the floor, and bounded upstairs.

“My darling, my darling!” was all he could say at first, between a shower of kisses. “How I have longed for you all these weary months!”

“And I for you,” she whispered shyly, as she looked up into his face, bronzed and older-looking, but handsomer than ever, she thought, with a thrill of pride.

“And to find you here to welcome me; it seems like a fairy tale! You must have bewitched my grandfather. And your eyes, darling?” he went on tenderly, bending to look into them. “If you had told me that trouble before, I should never have left you. Are they better?”

“So much better that I warn you I shall be able to detect all the faults in your pictures,” was her laughing reply. “But you haven’t explained yet why you are here four days before your time? We did not expect you till Christmas Eve.”

“I feared if I delayed I should be snow-bound. There have been several falls, and some of the lines are blocked.”

“I am glad you came today,” she said, more gravely. “I have been so anxious.”

“Is my grandfather worse?” he asked quickly.

“I fear so, though he will not admit it. He was speaking of you just now. I know he longs to see you. Come.”

Hand in hand they passed into the room, bright with fire-light and lamp-light. The old merchant had not moved. His head rested against the back of the chair; his hands were folded in an attitude of peaceful repose.

“He is asleep,” she whispered; “he— Oh, Bernhardt, what is it?”

For the young man, after one glance at the placid face, uttered an inarticulate cry, and sank on his knees before the chair. Monsieur Vanderhaven was sleeping the sleep that knows no waking.

III

It was Christmas Eve. The grave had closed over Nicolas Vanderhaven. All the dismal bustle of the funeral was over, and those interested in the old merchant’s will were assembled in the dining-room to hear it read by the notary.

The party was not a large one, consisting only of Bernhardt, his cousin, Cornelius Dewint, from Antwerp, a stout, florid, prosperous-looking personage of middle age, with a loud voice and a self-assertive manner; Ursula, and Jacob the butler, and lastly, Annette, who was present at Bernhardt’s desire.

The notary, a little, spare, high-dried man, in a dusty brown wig, and gold eye-glass, glanced round at the party as he unfolded a sheet of crackling parchment.

“This will was deposited with me by my late client some six months ago,” he began. “It—”

“Excuse me, Maître Janssen,” Bernhardt interrupted: “I am informed that there is a later one, which my grandfather made only a few hours before his death.”

“Yes, he wrote it in my presence,” Annette put in.

“And we witnessed it, Jacob and I,” spoke old Ursula. “The master sent for us on purpose.”

Monsieur Dewint wheeled round in his chair, and stared from one speaker to another, while the lawyer looked under his eye-glass at Annette. “Indeed? I was not aware of it,” he said.

“Monsieur Vanderhaven intended to have placed it with you the next morning,” she continued. “He said the first will was made in a moment of irritation, and he wished it to be destroyed before Bernhardt returned.”

“As Mademoiselle was so far in my uncle’s confidence, perhaps she can tell us the contents of this second will?” suggested Cornelius, with a veiled sneer which brought the colour to Bernhardt’s cheek.

“Yes,” Annette answered quietly. “M. Vanderhaven told me that his grandson would inherit everything except the business at Antwerp, which was left to yourself, Monsieur.”

He gave a sort of grunt, and pulled his beard discontentedly.

“Well, where is it? Why is it not produced?” was his demand.

“We have not looked for it yet,” Bernhardt replied, “but it must be somewhere in the Banquet-room, as my grandfather never left that apartment alive after he made it.”

“Then we must find it at once,” Maître Janssen said, rising. “If it exists this is so much waste paper,” and he threw the parchment on to the table.

“All the same, perhaps you will oblige me by reading that,” Cornelius Dewint suggested. The notary glanced at Bernhardt.

“By all means, if my cousin wishes it,” replied the latter. “I think I can guess the contents.”

The document was short and to the point. The business at Antwerp, and all the real and personal estate—chargeable with annuities for the old servants—were left to Cornelius Dewint, on condition that he neither let, sold, or demolished the old Guild-house, while Bernhardt came in for an ironical bequest of five hundred francs—“to buy paint and canvas.”

Annette looked distressed, and the young man flushed hotly.

“I don’t wonder my grandfather was anxious to revoke a will so unjust,” he commented.

“It remains to be proved whether he did revoke it,” was his cousin’s remark. “I have a sort of presentiment that this second document will not be forthcoming.”

Bernhardt answered only by a slight shrug, as he rose and led the way to the Banquet-room.

Nothing had been disturbed since the old merchant’s death. His chair still stood in its place with the screen behind it; the ashes remained on the cold hearth. Annette’s knitting lay where she had thrown it down. Inexpressibly forlorn it all looked in the waning light of the winter afternoon, and in their various ways every member of the party felt the depressing influence of the scene.

“If the paper is within these four walls we shall soon find it,” the notary observed, unconsciously lowering his voice.

And indeed, with the exception of an old press, where Bernhardt had been in the habit of keeping his painting materials, there seemed no place where it could be stowed away.

The will was not in the press, however, nor was it to be found elsewhere. They searched systematically; examining every nook and corner of the old room, sounding the panelling and the flooring, looking behind and under the furniture, and not desisting in their quest till everyone, except Annette, was convinced that it was in vain.

“But it must be here,” the girl exclaimed excitedly; “it cannot have been spirited away. M. Vanderhaven told me that he had put it in a safe place—”

“The fire, probably,” was Cornelius Dewint’s suggestion. “My belief is—with all deference to Mademoiselle—that my uncle changed his mind at the last moment, and destroyed it.”

“I am positive he did not,” she asserted. “He was scarcely alone with it a moment, for directly the servants left him, I returned, and it was then that he told me the contents. He was standing there, by the chimney-piece.”

Bernhardt, who stood near the window, looking out into the dusk, turned and beckoned to her. “Did you not tell me that he had been burning a paper?” he asked in an undertone.

“Yes, but it—I thought it was the rough draft of the will.”

“Might he not, by inadvertence, have destroyed the will itself?”

She did not answer, but her heart sank. It seemed only too likely that such was the case. There was a pause. It was nearly dark now, and the faces of the little group were lit by a lamp on the chimneypiece. The young man stood with his back to the rest, looking down at the Market-place, where the snow was falling heavily.

At length the silence was broken by Monsieur Dewint, who left the notary’s side and approached his cousin.

“Well, Bernhardt, you see I was right,” he began, in a loud, cheerful voice, rattling the loose cash in his pockets. “This mysterious document is non est inventus. Of course I feel for your disappointment; still, you can hardly expect me to give up the property off-hand to please you. Such generosity is rare—off the stage. You are not going to dispute the will, I presume?”

“No. I think it an unjust one, and I believe my grandfather had intended to revoke it, but no other being producible, it is perfectly valid. You are in your own house, cousin,” and he bowed to the new master with formal politeness.

The latter glanced about him disparagingly. “H’m—it is no great acquisition. If I had my way I should pull down the old baraque [barrack], and build a good house in its place. Well,” he continued, “suppose we go downstairs; this room is as cold as a vault.”

He passed out, followed by Maître Janssen, but the other two lingered.

“Annette, my sweet, do not look so sorrowful,” Bernhardt said, encircling her with his arm; “why, the loss of this fortune seems to trouble you more than it does me.”

“For your sake,” she faltered; “for myself, I am not afraid of poverty. It is so strange, so inexplicable, that the will should have disappeared in this way,” she continued. “I am convinced that it is in the room at this moment, if we only knew where to look for it.”

She moved from his side, and cast her eyes thoughtfully round. He shook his head.

“It is not here, or we should have found it,” he said. “Try to think no more of it, dear; we cannot—”

The words died on his lips as he looked at his companion.

She was standing in the middle of the room, her hands hanging at her sides, her eyes fixed and dilated, gazing into space. Every trace of colour had faded from her face. He sprang to her side.

“Good heavens, Annette—what is it? Are you ill?”

She drew a long breath, and looked at him like one waking from a dream. “No, I am not ill,” she whispered, “but I have the strangest feeling. As if—as if there were someone else in the room with us—”

She shivered and glanced nervously round the long, shadowy apartment, which was only half-lighted by the lamp on the chimneypiece. Bernhardt involuntarily did the same, but they were the only occupants.

“You see that we are alone,” he said. “You are tired and overexcited, darling: you need rest. It is snowing so heavily that you cannot leave the house at present. Go and lie down, and I will send Ursula to you.”

She acquiesced mechanically, and allowed him to lead her to the door. Her hand was deadly cold, and her eyes looked dreamy and absent. He kissed her cheek, and detained her a moment, looking into her face with anxious tenderness; but she turned from him without another word, and mounted the stairs to the little room she had called her own. Five minutes later old Ursula entered with a tray, and found her lying on the bed in the dark.

“I’ve brought you a cup of coffee, Mam’selle Annette,” the old servant said. “Monsieur Bernhardt hopes you are better; and the ‘new master’” (she jerked her chin aggressively) “graciously allows you to spend the night here, as it is snowing so heavily. Eh!” she broke off, “it makes me angry to see the airs he gives himself, and to think how different things would have been, but for the loss of a sheet of paper! Well, ’tis to be hoped old master doesn’t know—rest his soul!” she added, piously.

Annette drank her coffee in silence, and gave back the empty cup.

“Can I do anything else for you?” her companion asked. “You look as white as a Lent lily.”

“I am tired; I shall try to sleep,” she answered, sinking back among her pillows. Ursula threw a coverlet over her and retired, leaving the candle on the mantelshelf.

Night closed in. A solemn, tranquil winter night; the earth wrapped in a mantle of new-fallen snow, the sky glittering with innumerable stars. An almost preternatural stillness brooded over the old city, lying asleep in the snow and starlight. It seemed like an enchanted place, hushed by some drowsy spell. No footprints marked the white pavements, no sound broke the silence of the earth and air, save when at intervals the chimes rang out with a “strange unearthly music,” telling how the hours crept on towards Christmas Morn.

When the moon’s silver disc rose behind the Belfry Tower, one broad ray of cold ethereal light streamed on to the bed where Annette lay, still dressed, and sleeping profoundly. For several hours her rest was tranquil and oblivious, but towards midnight she was visited by a strange dream.

She seemed to be still lying on the bed, in the half-conscious state between sleeping and waking. Her eyes were open, but she was only vaguely aware of surrounding objects, of the moonlight streaming on the bed, and the glimpse of white house roofs seen through the window opposite.

Suddenly she was roused, she thought, from this dreamy lethargy, by a voice in the room, close to her, calling her name. She started and sat up, thrilling in every nerve, but not with fear. Drawing aside the curtains, she looked towards the spot from which the voice proceeded.

The room, save where the moon beams lighted it, was lost in shadow, yet she fancied she could discern the outlines of a figure, standing near the hearth. As she looked, it moved forward into the ray of light by the bedside, and then, with a sudden shock of startled recognition, she saw that it was Monsieur Vanderhaven, who stood looking at her with eyes full of urgent purpose.

“Annette!” the low but imperious voice repeated, “the will must be found. Come!” and he beckoned her towards the door.

After the first moment she seemed, with the curious insensibility of the dreamer, to feel neither surprise nor fear. She rose without hesitation and followed him down the stairs to the Banquet-room. The door was partly open, and the room within was lighted by a lamp, as when she had seen it last.

Her conductor crossed over to the hearth, and extended his hand to the portrait of his ancestor, which hung on a panel to the left of the chimney-piece.

“Master Simon can keep a secret,” he said, with the grave smile so familiar to her; “you would never have thought of searching here. Look!”

She pressed forward eagerly as he touched the picture, but at the same moment a hand was laid on her shoulder, and another voice exclaimed, “Annette!”

Then with a start and cry she woke—woke in earnest this time—to find herself standing in the Banquet-room, with Bernhardt’s astonished face bending over her. She looked round bewilderedly, trembling with a vague terror. Then, as remembrance returned, an expression of blank disappointment crossed her face.

“Oh, was it only a dream?”

“Were you asleep!” he exclaimed. “If I had known that, I should not have ventured to wake you. I was sorting and destroying some old sketches in these folios; it took me longer than I had expected, but I had just finished, and was about to leave the room, when you entered. You walked straight to the fireplace, and looked intently at the portrait. You were stretching out your hand towards it when I touched you. Did you dream about it, dear?”

“Yes. Oh, Bernhardt, such a strange dream.”

“What was it? tell me,” he said, making her sit down.

In low, awe struck tones she related it, glancing now and then over her shoulder at the shadowy room behind them. “It was so real, so vivid,” she concluded, “that I can hardly believe it was merely a dream.”

He had listened with breathless interest and growing excitement. When she had finished he started to his feet.

“Dream or not,” he exclaimed, “I believe it has given us a clue to the hiding-place of the will. It never occurred to us that there might be a cupboard behind that portrait.”

Annette clasped her hands. “Oh—let us look at once!”

“Hold the lamp, I will take the picture down,” he said; but he found this was impossible, as it was fastened with cramps to the panelled wall.

“There must be a spring somewhere,” he muttered, passing his hand down by the side of the frame, “or else—stay, what is this?”

His fingers had encountered a slight obstruction in the polished woodwork; a small metal knob or button, which was effectually concealed by the shadow of the heavy frame.

He pressed it, and immediately the panel with the portrait upon it started open, disclosing a deep square cupboard. The lovers looked at each other, too excited to speak.

“Hold the lamp higher,” he whispered, putting his hand into the cupboard.

The first thing brought to light was a bundle of old letters, tied with faded ribbon, and still retaining the ghost of their first perfume; then came a miniature in a case of Bernhardt’s father, when a boy, and finally—a folded sheet of letter paper, inscribed, in Monsieur Vanderhaven’s clear, commercial hand, “This is my last Will.”

Annette placed the lamp on the table, and looked over his shoulder as he unfolded the paper. One glance showed him that the contents were as she had stated. The business was left to his cousin, and all the rest, without reserve or condition, was his own. Their eyes met in an eloquent look.

“But for your dream we should never have found it,” he said. “How strange—how mysterious it seems!”

“Was it only a dream?” she questioned, under her breath.

They were silent; a feeling of awe and reverence overpowered them. “If he knows, he is happy now, as we are,” the young man said at last. They clasped hands, and looked into each other’s eyes, reading there the brightness of the future, from which all shadows and perplexities had passed away.

And as they stood thus, hand in hand, in the silence of the sleeping house, suddenly there rang out from the Belfry Tower the midnight carillon, ushering in the blessed Christmas morn. Sweet, strange, solemn chimes, falling on the silence in a silvery stream of music, like the voices of wandering angels, singing, “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men!”

“A happy Christmas, and a good new year!” Bernhardt exclaimed, as he bent to kiss the sweet face uplifted to his.

The Tenant of the Cedars

(Sep. 1883)

I

“To be let, furnished, by the month or year, The Cedars, a pretty, rustic cottage, delightfully situated in Ranstone Park, Berkshire, with right of fishing in the trout stream. For particulars, apply to Mr. Newton, House Agent, Reading.”

This advertisement arrested my attention as I, Percival Wilford, barrister-at-law, glanced over the columns of the Times one August morning, ten or twelve years ago.

It seemed like an answer to the question I had been deliberating as I sat at breakfast in my dull Temple chambers—namely, where should I spend the Long Vacation? I had reached that sedate period of life when one begins to realise that “there is no joy but calm,” and my ideal of a holiday retreat was some quiet, leafy nook where I could read and dream, and “go a-fishing,” and forget for a time that such things as briefs existed. I may add that I had only my own tastes to consult in the matter, having the misfortune (to which I am perfectly resigned) to be a bachelor. I made a note of the advertisement, and resolved to run down to the place next day and see whether it answered to its attractive description.

Accordingly, on the following afternoon I took train to Reading, and walked thence to the village of Ranstone, which consisted of one long, up-hill street, beginning with a blacksmith’s forge and ending with a barn. Midway between them stood an inn: The Golden Sheaf. Feeling somewhat fatigued by a five-mile walk along dusty country roads, I turned into this hostelry to refresh myself with a glass of ale, and enquire my way. The landlord, a red-faced burly man, in shirt-sleeves and a white apron, seemed puzzled by my question.

“The Cedars!” he repeated; “oh—I understand, sir. You mean the little thatched house in the park. We call it ‘Ranstone’s Folly.’”

“Why ‘Folly?’” I queried.

“Well, sir, because it’s a fanciful sort of place, and was built for a whim. Sir Richard Ranstone, the father of the present baronet, designed it himself when a young man, and used to shut himself up there to scribble poetry. Since his death it has been let from time to time, but not often. Such a lonesome, out-of the-way place don’t suit everyone.”

“I fancy it will just suit me,” I remarked.

My host scanned me curiously as he set down the glass at my elbow. “Perhaps you’re in the poetical line yourself, sir?” he suggested.

I laughed, and assured him that my “line” was nothing half so agreeable; and when I had finished, paid for my modest refreshment, and set off hopefully on my way.

It led through the village and along the high road, and in about ten minutes I came to the ivy-covered park wall, which was pleasantly shaded by trees.

Presently I found myself opposite the lodge-gates, my summons at which was answered by a neat, comely woman of middle-age, to whom I explained my errand, and exhibited my credentials in the shape of the house-agent’s card.

“The cottage is right on the other side of the park, sir, close to the stream,” she said, as she admitted me. “I’m sorry I can’t show you the way, but Foster’s out, and I’ve no one to leave. However, you can’t miss it if you keep to that path,” pointing to one which branched off to the right of the main avenue. “There’s a man living in charge who will show you over the house.”

“Has it been long unlet?” I enquired.

“Nigh upon three years. The last tenant only lived there six months—a lady named Lestelle.”

“That is a French name?”

“Yes, sir, she was French, and had been a singer, I believe.”

“Lestelle,” I repeated thoughtfully; “was it Leonie Lestelle, I wonder, who took the town by storm a few seasons ago? But that is hardly probable.”

“What was she like, sir?” my companion enquired, looking interested. “Young and pretty?”

“More than pretty. She had one of the loveliest faces I ever saw, and a voice that matched it.”

“It must be the same,” Mrs. Foster exclaimed; “that’s just her description. A beautiful young lady she was, and so gentle and sweet-spoken it was a pleasure to serve her.”

“But what brought her to The Cedars?” I questioned. “When she disappeared from London society about four years ago, it was supposed that she had returned to France. Was she living alone?”

“Quite alone, except for the servants—an elderly woman who did the housework, and a man named Underwood who attended to the garden and went on errands. It’s him that’s been living in charge of the house for the last two years. He used to be one of the under-gardeners at the Hall, but was dismissed because he was always quarrelling with the other men. A sullen, ill-conditioned fellow he is—though I ought not to say so, perhaps, as he’s a cripple and deformed,” she added, with compunction. “He has a hard life of it.”

“How came Mademoiselle Lestelle to take him into her service?”

“It was out of kindness, sir, because no one else would employ him. Her patience and sweetness conquered even him. I believe he worshipped the ground she trod upon, and he was like one frantic when she was—when she died.”

I started. “What—is she dead?” I asked.

My companion looked at me in surprise. “Didn’t you know, sir? Did you never hear?”

“I have heard nothing of her since she gave up her profession. What was the cause of her death?”

Before she could reply the sound of a horse approaching rapidly up the road made her glance towards the gates. “It’s Sir Philip,” she said, hurriedly, and ran forward to open them.

The baronet was a tall, distinguished-looking man, of two or three and thirty, with handsome, haughty features, bold dark eyes, and full red lips half hidden by a sweeping moustache. A striking face, but scarcely an attractive one. There was something at once hard and sensual about it that repelled me. He was mounted on a handsome chestnut mare, whose panting, foam-flecked sides showed that she had been mercilessly ridden. Apparently the exercise had not improved her owner’s temper. Slight as was the delay in admitting him, he abused the woman for keeping him waiting. He was riding on when, perceiving me, he drew rein.

“The gentleman has called to see the cottage,” Mrs. Foster explained.

“What cottage?” he asked, absently.

“The Cedars, Sir Philip.”

He slightly nodded, and acknowledging my salute by touching the brim of his hat with his whip, jerked the bridle, and rode on up the avenue, followed by his dogs. Mrs. Foster looked after her master’s retreating figure with no great favour.

“He needn’t have sworn at me,” she muttered, resentfully. “I was as quick as I could be. But he’s in one of his moods to-day, and makes everyone suffer for it. Ah—I wouldn’t be in my lady’s shoes for all her grandeur. They’ve only been married a couple of years, but already—”

A significant shake of the head finished the sentence. “Who was Lady Ranstone?” I asked.

“She was the daughter and heiress of Mr. Goldney, the great banker. She’s a nice lady, but no beauty, and several years older than Sir Philip. It’s pretty well known that he married her for her money, being over head and ears in debt, thanks to his— But I really beg your pardon, sir,” she broke off, becoming suddenly conscious of her indiscretion. “I ought not to detain you with my gossip. If Underwood is not indoors, you’ll find him somewhere in the garden—reading, most likely. He’s quite a scholar, in his way. Good afternoon, sir, and a pleasant walk.”

I nodded to her, and went my way down the path she had indicated, which traversed the whole width of the park; winding across sunny glades, and ferny hollows, and under the shade of “immemorial elms,” between whose branches I caught glimpses of the Hall, a stately modern building in the Italian style.

At length, emerging from a young oak plantation, I came unexpectedly upon the stream—which at this point was both broad and deep—and on the slope of the opposite bank stood The Cedars.

It was a picturesque rustic pavilion, with a high, thatched roof, whose overhanging ledge, supported on pillars, formed a verandah, on to which the lower windows opened. Behind it the trees clustered closely, and the garden in front sloped to the edge of the stream, which was spanned by a light rustic bridge. I crossed it, and passed through a wicket gate into the garden, which was in beautiful order; the parterres a mass of brilliant bloom, the grass-plot like green velvet.

It was not till I was close to the house that I perceived the figure of the custodian, who was seated in the verandah.

He was a man of from thirty-five to forty, with rugged strongly-marked features, and melancholy dark eyes. His figure, though misshapen, was vigorous and muscular, and there was a look of suppressed power about him which suggested hidden reserves of force, both mental and physical. I had ample time to make these observations, for he did not seem to notice my approach, nor did he reply when I addressed him.

There was a book in his hand, a well-worn volume of Shakespeare, but he was not reading. He sat in a listening attitude, with head upraised and lips apart, his foot gently beating the ground, as if in time to music. Involuntarily I listened, too, but heard nothing except the lonely murmur of the breeze, and the distant forlorn note of a wood-pigeon. At length I touched his arm. He sprang to his feet, staring at me with vague alarm.

“I am sorry I startled you, but you did not hear me speak,” I said. “Will you—”

“How long have you been watching me?” he interrupted, brusquely.

“I have but this moment come,” I returned. “I wish to look over the house.”

He hesitated; and seemed half inclined to refuse me admission, but thinking better of it, nodded, and limped on before me to the door, drawing back to allow me to pass in. I found myself in a small tiled entrance hall, with doors on either hand. He threw open the one to the left, and ushered me into a dusky, low room, furnished in a style of quaint simplicity, which suited the character of the house.

“This is what they call Sir Richard’s study,” he explained. “The parlour across the hall is the same size, but better furnished. I can’t show it you, for the door’s locked, and—and I’ve mislaid the key.”

His hesitation convinced me that he was telling an untruth; for some reason of his own he did not wish me to see the room. However, I only said quietly: “I think I noticed that the window was open; we can go in that way.”

He reluctantly followed me, and stood outside as I entered through the long window, which opened, like a door, upon the verandah.

The room in which I found myself was as great a contrast to the one I had just quitted as could well be imagined. With its polished floor and panelled walls; its light but elegant furniture, its crowd of dainty ornaments, and general look of airy brightness, it might have been transported bodily from a Parisian “Appartement.” But I noticed with surprise, that it seemed to have been recently occupied by a lady. There were fresh flowers in the vases; music on the open piano, books on the table, and a work-basket, with a strip of embroidery, which seemed to have been just thrown down. I hastily drew back, and turned to my companion.

“I understood that the house was unoccupied,” I said. “Why did you not tell me—”

“There is no one here except myself,” he interrupted.

“Then, to whom do these belong?” I enquired, pointing to the books and music.

“To no one in particular. They did belong to a lady who lived here for a time three years ago, but she’s dead.”

“You mean Mademoiselle Lestelle?” He nodded, slowly passing his hand across his forehead. “But how came they to be left here? Did no one claim them, after her death—no friend or relative?”

“She had no near relations, and few friends in this country. I have heard her say that she would leave no one to regret her. But she was mistaken there,” he muttered.

I looked at him curiously. There was something in his face that attracted me, in spite of its harsh lines.

“You, at least, will not soon forget her, I am sure?” I said, after a pause. His lips curved in a smile half sad, half bitter.

“I have not so many friends that I can afford to forget that one. I suppose I may claim the dog’s virtue—fidelity, if no other. I know that I would gladly have died upon her grave,” he added, in a low tone of suppressed but passionate feeling which was a revelation to me. The next moment, however, he broke into a short laugh.

“You may well look astonished to hear such a romantic sentiment from ‘Caliban,’ as Sir Philip calls me. Sounds grotesque from my lips, doesn’t it, sir?”

“You need not fear ridicule from me,” I said, quietly. “I understand your feeling, and respect it.”

He gave me a half-incredulous look, as if sympathy were something new to him. Then his face changed and softened, and with a quick impulsive movement he put out his hand.

“Thank you, sir—that’s kindly spoken,” he said, earnestly. “I’m sorry I told you a falsehood about the key—for it was a falsehood. I have it in my pocket. But—but this room, where she spent so many hours, is sacred to me; so sacred, that it seems sacrilege for a stranger to enter it.” He paused, looking round reverently, as if it were indeed a sanctuary.

“I have kept it just as it was when—when last she used it,” he continued, in a low dreamy tone, speaking to himself more than to me. “I can almost fancy I see her bending over her book, or singing softly to herself as she worked. What a voice she had! It seemed to draw the heart out of my body. She used to let me sit in the verandah when she was singing, and she’d talk to me between whiles in her pretty broken English. She’d always a word and a smile for ‘Jacques,’ as she called me—always as gentle and courteous she was as if I’d been her friend and equal, instead of her servant. Ah! She was the sweetest soul that ever—”

His voice broke; he hastily turned his head aside.

“I’ve got her portrait—the last she had taken, if you would like to see it,” he resumed, after a moment, and took it from a worn leather pocket-book. It was the vignette photograph of a lovely girl of one or two and twenty, with a delicate, spiritual face, framed in cloudy dark hair; a sweet sorrowful mouth, and soft steadfast dark eyes.

“It is very like her,” was my comment.

“Ah—you knew her?” he questioned, eagerly.

“No, but I have heard her sing more than once. Her face had not this sorrowful look when I saw her last. What was her trouble, I wonder? Did she ever speak of her past life?”

“No—yes. She sometimes talked of her childhood, when her parents were living.”

“But not of her later years? She did not tell you why she gave up her profession?”

“She was not likely to take me into her confidence,” he rejoined, evasively, and added, as if to avoid further questions: “Perhaps you would like to see the other rooms now?” And without waiting for my reply, he crossed the hall and led the way upstairs.

Before my tour of inspection was over, I had resolved to become the temporary tenant of The Cedars. Underwood received the announcement of my decision in silence.

“I suppose I shall have to turn out when you take possession?” he said at last, glancing at me half-wistfully.

“Not unless you are disinclined to remain as my servant,” I replied.

“I shall be only too glad to stay, sir, and I’ll do my best to please you,” he responded. “I don’t know whether you intend to bring a woman-servant with you; but, if not, I dare say Mrs. Foster, at the lodge, could recommend one.”

“I will speak to her on my way back, and you may expect to see me this day week.”

I slipped a coin into his hand, and we parted.

II

A week later I found myself once more entering the gates of Ranstone Park, having left my “traps” to be sent after me from Reading.

The evening was grey, moist, and cool. Rain had fallen in the morning, and the air was still charged with the sweet pastoral scent of wet earth and grass. “Autumn’s fiery finger” had not yet touched the leaves, and the woods wore a green as fresh and rich as if the month had been June instead of August.

To come straight from the dust and turmoil of town to these sylvan solitudes was almost like being transported to another planet. The walk was so pleasant that I was half sorry when it was over, and I saw before me the solitary pavilion, with the woods behind it and the stream at its feet. I was received at the door by Mrs. Foster and a pleasant, fresh-faced young woman, whom she introduced as her niece.

“Martha can’t be spared from home altogether, sir,” she explained, “but she’ll be here early every morning, and I think you’ll find her a good cook. She’s given the house a thorough cleaning, all but the drawing-room. Underwood has fastened the window and locked the door, and won’t let her set foot in it. I really think the man is going out of his mind,” she continued, following me into the study, where the cloth was laid for my solitary dinner. “Just look at him now, sir.”

She pointed through the window to where the gardener was standing in the side-walk. He had paused in the act of pruning a rosebush, and seemed to be listening intently to some sound proceeding from the lower end of the walk.

“He’ll stand in that way for ten minutes together, listening to nothing,” she whispered. “It gives me a creepy feeling to look at him. People do say that the cottage is haunted, and that he—”

“Nonsense!” I interrupted; “he is evidently subject to some delusion. Have you any idea what it is?”

She shook her head, and was silent a moment, thoughtfully watching him. “He has never been the same man since that dreadful affair three years ago,” she resumed, at length.

“What are you speaking of?”

She coloured and bit her lips. “I ought not to have mentioned it, as it may set you against the house—however, I dare say you would have heard of it from someone else. I mean the murder of Mademoiselle Lestelle.”

“What!” I exclaimed, in horror. “Do you mean to say that she was murdered?”

“In this very house, on the night of the first of September, three years ago.”

“Good heavens!—By whom?”

“That is a mystery to this hour. She was in the habit of sitting up rather late to practice her music, and that night Underwood, who was in bed, but not asleep, noticed that she broke off suddenly in the middle of a song. He thought it strange, and after waiting a few moments, threw on his clothes, and hurried downstairs. He found the poor young lady lying in a pool of her own blood—dead. She had been stabbed in the back as she sat at the piano. The window was open, and there were footprints in the garden, but the murderer, whoever it was, had had time to get clear away, and has never been traced from that day to this.”

“What was supposed to be the motive of the crime?—robbery?”

“No, nothing was stolen; that’s the mysterious part of it. You may think that Sir Philip was dreadfully shocked at such a thing happening on his estate. He himself offered a reward for information, but—”

“Was no one even suspected at the time?” I interrupted.

My companion hesitated. “Well—one person was, sir.”

“Who was that?”

She pointed to the gardener. I looked at her incredulously.

“Impossible!” I exclaimed. “Underwood—who was so devotedly attached to her!”

“Many people think he has madness in his blood,” she whispered; “and it’s well known that madmen often turn against the very person they love best when in their right senses. You see we have only his own account of what took place that night, for the housekeeper neither saw nor heard anything. The footprints may have been a cunning device to avert suspicion. Heaven forbid that I should accuse him wrongfully,” she added in conclusion, “but everyone has noticed that since it happened, he has been like a man bewitched.”

When she had left the room I stood for a moment, watching the gardener; then opened the window, and crossed the lawn to his side. He stood in the same attitude, with a rapt, ecstatic look on his face, as if he were listening to the “music of the spheres.” He turned towards me as I approached, but did not appear to recognise me till I spoke.

“Day-dreaming again, Underwood?” I said. “It seems to be a habit of yours?”

He passed his hand over his forehead, as if to rouse himself, and pushed back his cap.

“A very stupid one. I must try to cure myself of it,” he replied with a constrained smile.

“What were you listening to just now?” I asked point-blank.

He resumed his task, and made no reply.

“Why will you not tell me?”

“Because, if I did, you would think me mad.”

“Delusion is not necessarily a sign of insanity,” I said after a moment’s pause. “Your delusion—if you have one—may arise from disordered nerves, or—”

“I have no delusion,” he interrupted. “My senses are quickened to hear a sound which is inaudible to others—that’s all.”

“What is the sound?” I persisted; but again there was no reply. I changed the subject. “I hear that you have the key of the drawing-room; please to give it me.”

He took it from his pocket at once, and handed it to me, muttering something about not wishing the things to be “meddled with.”

“Nothing need be moved, for I don’t intend to use that room,” I replied; “but I should prefer to keep the key.”

He looked up quickly. “Ah! they have told you, I see.”

“Yes, I have been told what happened there,” I assented, looking him full in the face. He met my eyes steadily, his lips curving in a slow, sardonic smile.

“Perhaps you know that I was suspected of the crime?”

“Unjustly, I am sure,” I replied, speaking my conviction; for I could detect no shadow of guilty consciousness in the man’s face: only bitterness and melancholy.

“How can you be sure of it? I may be a madman and a murderer for all you know to the contrary,” he retorted with a short, brusque laugh. Then, with one of his sudden changes of manner, he threw down his knife, and turned upon me almost fiercely.

“Does a man destroy what he adores? I worshipped her—I would have died for her. And it was me—me! they accused of taking her innocent life. Fools that they were!”

With a passionate gesture of his clenched hands he turned from me and limped hurriedly away down the path. I saw no more of him that evening, but he occupied a large share of my thoughts, both then and in the days which followed. His presence seemed to add to the uncanny sort of fascination which the place possessed for me—something which at once repelled and attracted my imagination.

Yet if the place were haunted, it seemed haunted by nothing more terrible than the gracious memory of its late tenant, which pervaded every room, like a lingering echo, or a sweet faint perfume, giving it a melancholy and mysterious charm.

A fortnight passed away in uneventful tranquillity. I took long walks in the pleasant Berkshire lanes; angled in the stream, lounged in the garden, and spent quiet evenings with my books.

I had seen nothing more of my landlord (a circumstance which I hardly regretted), and my only connection with the outer world was through my cheerful and obliging little maid, who brought my letters and papers every morning, and regaled me with scraps of village gossip. I should thoroughly have enjoyed this “lotos-eating” existence but for the feeling of languor and depression which clung to me. For the first time in my life I was conscious of “nerves.” I felt restless and ill-at-ease, and my sleep was disturbed by troubled dreams from which I woke, “in the dead waste and middle of the night,” trembling with some nameless fear.

One night when I had started awake in this uncomfortable fashion, finding it impossible to compose myself to sleep again, I half dressed, lighted a cigar, and took my seat near the open window. The night was sultry and still. The moon had set, but the sky was full of stars, and their faint, diffused light showed me the garden, the stream, and the shadowy park beyond. The murmur of running water, scarcely heard by day, was distinctly audible in the silence, and now and then a languid breeze charged with the sweet aromatic odour which the sleeping earth breathes forth, just stirred the leaves and died away. Was it in the magical stillness of such a night as this, I wondered, that Leonie Lestelle had sung her last song—that song which was never finished?

Her face rose up before me with strange distinctness, and I seemed to be listening once more to the clear, silvery sweet tones of her exquisite voice, which had a tender thrill, like the wooing note of a dove. I recollected that when last I heard her sing—it was a private concert at Lady A——’s—she had chosen Beethoven’s “Per pietà non dirmi addio!” The words haunted me, their musical syllables setting themselves to the murmur of the breeze and the ripple of the stream.

I do not know how long I had been sitting thus when I was roused from my reverie by another sound, coming from the room beneath—the key of which had been in my own possession since the day of my arrival. It did not at once arrest my attention, but stole upon me so gradually that I could not have told at what moment I first heard it. I turned from the window and listened.

Was I dreaming, I asked myself bewilderedly, or did I hear the faint sweet tones of a woman’s voice singing the very song which haunted my memory? I started to my feet, and for a moment stood transfixed, paralysed, by a fear such as I had never before experienced. Recovering myself by an effort I took up the night-lamp and left the room.

I noiselessly descended the stairs, crossed the little tiled entrance-hall, and paused outside the door of the closed room. My heart beat fast and thick and a creeping chill stirred the roots of my hair as I stood in the hush of the sleeping house, listening—to what?

The voice of Léonie Lestelle. Faint and aerial as the notes of an Aeolian harp; near, yet distant; sweet beyond words, but unutterably sad, it thrilled through the silence, breathing with tender, passionate entreaty: “Ah, per pietà non dirmi addio!” I forgot to feel afraid; I forgot even to wonder, as I listened with suspended breath to those entrancing notes, and when they ceased I stood, as if spell-bound, longing to hear more of the sweet, unearthly music.

At length, when the silence had lasted some moments, I ventured to open the door. The room was dark and empty, the piano closed. As I stood on the threshold looking round, I felt a touch on my arm, and turning with a start, found Underwood at my side. He had been watching me unperceived. He beckoned me into the other room and closed the door before he spoke. His face was flushed; his eyes glittering with excitement, and a strange sort of triumph.

“You have heard it at last!” he breathed. “You know now that the sound is no ‘delusion.’ It is her voice that follows me night and day. Oh, my lady, my queen,” he broke off, “why do you haunt me? What is it you want of me? If you would but speak instead of mocking me with those sweet piteous songs of yours—”

He sank on to a chair near the table, burying his face in his hands.

I set down the lamp and took a seat at his side. “When did you first hear it?” I asked, involuntarily speaking in a whisper. He looked up, pushing back the disordered hair from his forehead.

“Last summer. The first time it was but a faint thin sound, like a distant echo, but every day it grew clearer and nearer, seeming to float in the air around me. It is not only in the house that I hear it, but out of doors in broad daylight, as if she were flitting about the garden singing to herself as she used to do. Sometimes she calls me—‘Jacques, Jacques!’ and her sweet, low laugh sounds so close that I can’t help turning, half expecting to see her at my side.”

I shuddered. “I wonder you have kept your senses!” I exclaimed.

“Do you think I am afraid of it? No—her voice is still to me what it always was, the sweetest sound on this side of heaven. It is only in spring and summer, during the months she lived here, that I hear it,” he continued. “It ceases at midnight on the first of September; breaking off in the middle of a song—the very song she was singing when—when it happened.”

I glanced at his face, and something I saw there confirmed a suspicion which had already occurred to me.

“Underwood,” I said suddenly, leaning forward with my arms on the table; “can you honestly assure me that you do not know or suspect who took her life?”

He looked at me fixedly a moment, then answered, in a tone of curious composure: “I have known all along.”

I drew back, and stared at him.

“Then, why in heaven’s name did you not speak at the time?”

“My lips were sealed by a promise.”

“Given to whom? Who bound you to silence?”

“She did, with her last breath, that fatal night, when I found her, lying in the moonlight, with her life ebbing away from the cruel wound. She saw in my face that I guessed who had struck the blow, and with all the strength that was left in her she implored—commanded me never to tell. It was her husband—for she was married, though the world did not know it. I have kept the secret so far, but I feel that if I don’t share it with someone, I shall go mad in earnest. It is eating my heart away. I dare not break my vow, but you shall know the truth.”

“From whom? How shall I know it—and when?”

He rose and pushed back his chair, pointed over his shoulder, then bent his lips to my ear.

“Watch with me in that room on the night of the first of September, and you shall learn the secret.”

Before I could speak again, he was gone.

III

The last week of August was stormy and wet. Summer took flight hurriedly, scared by the wild gales and heavy rain which stripped the branches and laid the flowers low. The green arcades of the park were dank and dripping; the sunny glades, forlorn; the avenues carpeted with fallen leaves, and the little river, transformed from a stream to a torrent, had overflowed its banks, inundating the lower end of the Cedars lawn, and carrying away the hand-rails, and some planks of the bridge.

The tempestuous weather culminated on the first of September. From dawn till dark the wind blew and the rain fell “as they would never weary;” but in spite of both, I was abroad all the afternoon, being in a restless, excited mood which would not allow me to remain between four walls.

The light of a stormy sunset was fading into dusk when I returned through the park, tired and wet, after a long tramp through miry country lanes. As I emerged from the plantation which bordered the stream, I was surprised to see Sir Philip Ranstone, who was standing on the bank, near the bridge. Buttoned up in his ulster he leaned against a tree, smoking, in serene indifference to wind and rain, with a large black retriever at his feet.

The dog started up as I approached, barking violently, and Sir Philip turned.

“Ah! good evening, Mr. —ah—Wilford,” he said, coming towards me. “Awful weather, isn’t it? But I see you defy the elements, like myself.”

“I was tired of staying indoors,” I explained.

“I should think so; you must be bored to extinction in that dull hole, with no company but your own.”

“I am fond of my own company,” I said, smiling. “I am never bored when alone.”

He glanced at me with languid curiosity. “Really. H’m—I can’t say as much. I think in your place I should be ready to fraternise with Underwood—bear as he is—in default of other society.”

“Underwood and I are very good friends, Sir Philip. I find he improves on acquaintance.”

“There is room for improvement,” was his comment. “By the way,” he continued, knocking the ash from his cigar, “I should very much like to know whether he is the author of an absurd report which has only lately reached my ears—that The Cedars is haunted. It struck me that it might be an ingenious device of his to keep tenants away.”

I shook my head. “I am quite sure that he has never told—I mean that he has never spread such a report.”

He turned and looked at me. “You seem to think there is some truth in it,” he remarked.

I felt no inclination to take him into my confidence, and stooped to stroke his dog without replying.

“Am I to conclude from your silence that you do?” he persisted, with an ironical smile. “Come, Mr. Wilford, you don’t mean to tell me that you, a man of the world, and a lawyer to boot, actually believe in ghosts?”

I hesitated a moment, then looked up. “I believe in the evidence of my own senses,” I said quietly.

“You excite my curiosity,” he sneered. “What uncanny thing have you seen, I wonder?”

“I have seen nothing; it is a sound which haunts the house.”

“A sound?” he repeated, with a quick change of tone. “What sort of sound?”

“A voice,” I said, slowly. “The voice of the ill-fated girl who met her death beneath its roof.”

The cigar fell from his hand. “Good heavens!” he breathed. “What do you mean? It is not—”

“Yes, Sir Philip; it is the voice of Leonie Lestelle. I have heard her singing as plainly as I heard you speak just then.”

He looked at me blankly, the colour fading from his face, and his dark eyes dilating till they seemed all pupil. Recovering himself, however, he stooped to pick up his cigar, and burst into a scornful laugh.

“Preposterous! you must have been dreaming, or else it is some trick of Underwood’s.”

“Could Underwood imitate such a voice as hers? Besides—he has heard it himself. It has haunted him for the last two years.”

Sir Philip drew in his lips, and was silent a moment. “That is strange,” he said, at length. “Why should it haunt him, of all people, unless—”he glanced at me significantly—“unless there is some foundation for the suspicion which still clings to him.”

“I am quite sure there is none,” I answered, warmly.

“Other people do not share your conviction,” was his reply. “It is because no one in the neighbourhood would give him the shelter of a roof that I have allowed him to remain at the cottage. However, he will soon have to find fresh quarters, for I am determined to have the house pulled down. Haunted or not, it is a gloomy, ill-omened place.”

And, indeed, it looked so at this moment, with the shadows of the stormy twilight gathering round it, and a white mist rising, wraithlike, from the stream. He stared at it moodily, pulling the long ends of his moustache. “Where did you hear the—the sound?” he asked, after a pause. “In what part of the house?”

“In the room where the tragedy occurred.”

He shivered slightly, and threw away his half-smoked cigar.

“The probability is that you had been thinking of that horrible affair, and imagination did the rest. As to Underwood, everyone knows he is half-mad. Anyhow, you will oblige me by keeping the story to yourself. I will wish you good evening now,” he continued, glancing at his watch; “or, rather, good-bye, for I am going abroad in a few days, and shall probably not see you again.”

He bowed without offering me his hand, whistled to his dog, and walked away.

•    •    •    •

Dusk deepened into dark, and the wind, instead of subsiding, seemed to increase in violence as the night advanced. The fierce, fitful gusts came sweeping down upon the house, as if bent on unroofing it; now swelling to a roar which made the walls vibrate, then dying away in a long eerie wail. Towards midnight the rain ceased, and the clouds, rent and scattered by the wind, drifted apart like fragments of a torn veil, leaving a space of clear, violet-dark sky, in which the moon rode serenely. Her light touched the brimming stream with silver, and flecked the lawn with fantastic shadows of the tossing trees, giving something of wild poetry to the scene.

Underwood and I were in the second hour of our strange vigil, which so far, had been uninterrupted. I sat near the window; my companion on a low chair at the farther end of the room, his elbows on his knees, his forehead resting on his hands; both of us silent and motionless. The room was unlighted, and both door and window were shut. The atmosphere was close and heavy, and at length, feeling suffocated, I rose and opened the long window, admitting a rush of chill, damp air.

I stood for a moment looking out at the wild night, and as I glanced towards the bridge, I thought I distinguished a man’s figure in the act of crossing it—a figure which, even at that distance, seemed familiar. And yet—what could bring Sir Philip to the place at this untimely hour? I was still straining my eyes through the shadows, when a movement of my companion made me turn hastily from the window. The moonlight showed me that he had risen, and stood grasping the back of his chair, gazing with a look of awe-struck expectation towards the door.

My heart began to throb with the same mysterious dread which I had experienced before. As I held my breath to listen, a faint rustling sound struck my ear, like the soft “frou-frou” of a woman’s dress. It crossed the room from the door to the piano, passing close to me—so close, that I involuntarily drew back, thrilling in every nerve.

There was a pause, filled by wailing wind and rushing water, then—near to us, yet immeasurably distant, like a divine echo from another world, the solemn, spiritual voice arose.

This time both words and music were English, and there was a ring of passionate pain in its tone which brought the tears to my eyes as I listened.

All the anguish of a breaking heart seemed to find expression in “The Song of Love and Death.”

“Sweet is true love, tho’ given in vain, in vain;

And sweet is death, who puts an end to pain:

I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.”

In the interval after the first verse I caught the sound of footsteps approaching up the gravel walk, and presently, a figure appeared at the window, darkly outlined against the moonlit background.

I had not been mistaken; it was Sir Philip. Underwood, whose head was turned towards the piano, did not notice the visitor, nor did the latter appear to perceive that the room was occupied. After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed back the lace curtains and noiselessly entered—or was about to enter; but, in the very act of crossing the threshold, he stopped short and recoiled, for at the same moment the song was resumed:

“Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be:

Love, thou art bitter? sweet is death to me.

Oh Love, if death be sweeter—”

There was a sudden break; a quick, short, gasping cry. Involuntarily I glanced towards the watcher at the window. He stood as if turned to stone, and his face, livid in the moonlight, looked like a mask of fear.

There was a silence of several moments—silence within and without, for the fitful wind was hushed. The voice sank to a broken, inarticulate murmur, and died away in a long, shuddering sigh. Then all was still. After a moment, Underwood passed his hand over his eyes, then turned to speak to me. But at the same instant he caught sight of Sir Philip, and, with a hoarse cry of mingled rage and triumph, sprang forwards to the window, and seized him by the throat.

“Villain! traitor! murderer!” he uttered, in a breathless tone of concentrated passion. “I have spared you too long. By heaven, you shall not escape me now!”

Startled by the unexpected attack, Sir Philip staggered backwards and would have fallen, if he had not caught at one of the rustic pillars of the verandah. Recovering himself, however, he shook off his assailant, and casting a wild, panic-stricken glance around, darted across the lawn. The gardener hurried in pursuit, and I mechanically followed, feeling as if all the events of the night were part of a wild and troubled dream.

In spite of his lameness, Underwood gained on the other, and was close behind him when he reached the gate. Sir Philip quickened his pace and hurried over the bridge. But when halfway across it, his foot caught in one of the loose planks; he stumbled, put out his hand blindly in search of the missing rail, lost his balance, and fell headlong into the deepest part of the stream.

I uttered a cry of dismay, and dashed on to the bridge, where Underwood was standing, his dark hair disordered by the wind, staring blankly down at the spot where the baronet had disappeared.

The latter rose to the surface some yards below the bridge, struggling helplessly against the headstrong current. The moonlight gleamed for a moment on his white face, showing the look of terror and anguish imprinted on it—a look which haunts me still.

“Underwood!” he gasped; “you can swim—help! save me.”

For all reply, the gardener deliberately folded his arms, looking down at him with a dreadful smile.

“Surely you will not let him drown before your eyes!” I exclaimed; “remember, vengeance is not yours. Save him—”

“Not if I could do it by lifting a finger,” was his stern reply.

I said no more, perceiving that my words would have no more effect on him than the wind which was raving above our heads. I turned, and was hurrying away, in the faint hope of being able to give aid from the bank, when, without otherwise changing his position, he put out a hand and grasped my wrist, holding it as in a vice.

“Stay where you are,” he said, in a stern imperative undertone. “It is just that he should perish—a life for a life!”

But even as the words passed his lips, his grasp suddenly relaxed; he dropped my wrist and stepped back a pace from me. Glancing at his face I saw in it a change so extraordinary that it arrested my attention even in the midst of my excitement.

He was gazing intently at something in the space between us; something which was visible to himself alone, for to me there seemed only air and moonlight. What did he see? What was it that brought that look of mingled awe and rapture to his dark face, transfiguring every feature? He gazed steadily for a moment, then bowed his head as if in assent.

“So be it, dear angel,” he whispered; “I will do your bidding—if it is not too late.”

Without another word he threw off his coat and plunged into the stream. A few vigorous strokes brought him to the spot where the baronet had sunk for a second time. He dived, and presently reappeared supporting him with one muscular arm, while with the other he struck out for the bank. But his movements were impeded by Sir Philip, who clung to him with the convulsive energy of a drowning man.

“If you value your life, loose my arms! How can I swim, hampered like this?” I heard Underwood cry, as the swift current swept them on past a turn of the stream. I hurried along the bank, but it was some moments before I caught sight of them again. The gardener was still struggling in a desperate but ineffectual effort to shake off the frantic clasp which was dragging them both under water.

As I stood watching them with breathless anxiety, a passing cloud veiled the moon, and for a moment blotted out the scene. In that brief interval of darkness a wild despairing cry rose above the rushing of the river and the roaring of the wind. When the moon looked forth again they had sunk to rise no more.

•    •    •    •

The bodies of the two men, still closely locked together, were found, entangled in water-weeds, some yards lower down the stream. The account I gave of the accident was confirmed by the condition of the bridge, and my statement that Underwood had perished in endeavouring to save his master, caused a complete revulsion of feeling towards the gardener, who having been shunned as a criminal during his life-time, was honoured as a hero after his death.

What brought Sir Philip to the cottage that night remained a mystery to all but myself. Immediately after the inquest I returned to town, feeling no inclination to remain in a place haunted by such terrible associations. I have never revisited Ranstone, nor until now have I ever disclosed what I know concerning the beautiful but ill-fated tenant of The Cedars.

In the Dark

(Jun. 1885)

“It is the strangest, most unaccountable thing I ever knew! I don’t think I am superstitious, but I can’t help fancying that—”

Ethel left the sentence unfinished, wrinkling her brows in a thoughtful frown as she gazed into the depths of her empty tea-cup.

“What has happened?” I enquired, glancing up from the Money Article of the Times at my daughter’s pretty, puzzled face. “Nothing uncanny, I hope? You haven’t discovered that a ‘ghost’ is included among the fixtures of our new house?”

This new house, The Cedars, was a pretty old-fashioned riverside villa between Richmond and Kew, which I had taken furnished, as a summer residence, and to which we had only just removed.

Let me state, in parenthesis, by way of introducing myself to the reader, that I, John Dysart, am a widower with one child: the blue-eyed, fair-haired young lady who sat opposite to me at the breakfast table that bright June morning: and that I have been for many years the manager of an old-established Life Insurance Company in the City.

“What is the mystery?” I repeated, as Ethel did not reply.

She came out of her brown study, and looked at me impressively.

“It really is a mystery, papa, and the more I think of it the more puzzled I am.”

“I am in the dark at present as to what ‘it’ may be,” I reminded her.

“Something that happened last night. You know that adjoining my bedroom there is a large, dark closet, which can be used as a box or store-room?”

“I had forgotten the fact, but I will take your word for it. Well, Ethel?”

“Well, last night I was restless, and it was some hours before I could sleep. When at last I did so, I had a strange dream about that closet. It seemed that as I lay in bed I heard a noise within, as if someone were knocking at the door, and a child’s voice, broken by sobs, crying piteously ‘Let me out, let me out!’ I thought that I got out of bed and opened the door, and there, crouching all in a heap against the wall, was a little boy; a pretty, pale little fellow of six or seven, looking half wild with fright. At the same moment I woke.”

“And lo, it was a dream!” I finished. “If that is all Ethel—”

“But it is not,” she interposed. “The strangest part of the story has to come. The dream was so vivid that when I woke I sat up in bed, and looked towards the closet door, almost expecting to hear the sounds again. Papa, you may believe me or not, but it is a fact that I did hear them, the muffled knocking, and the pitiful cry. As I listened, it grew fainter and fainter and at length ceased altogether. Then I summoned courage to get out of bed and open the door. There was no living creature in the place. Was it not mysterious?” she concluded. “What can it mean?”

I glanced at her with a smile, as I refolded the paper and rose from my chair.

“It means, my dear, that you had nightmare last night. Let me recommend you for the future not to eat cucumber at dinner.”

“No, papa,” she interrupted. “I was broad awake, and I heard the child’s voice as plainly as I ever heard a sound in my life.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I was afraid to stir till the sound had ceased; but if I ever hear it again, I will let you know at once.”

“Be sure you do. Meantime, suppose you come into the garden,” I continued, throwing open the French windows; “the morning air will blow all these cobwebs from your brain.”

Ethel complied, and for the present I heard no more of the subject.

Some days passed away, and we began to feel quite at home in our new quarters.

A more delightful summer retreat than The Cedars could hardly be imagined, with its cool, dusky rooms, from which the sunlight was excluded by the screen of foliage outside; its trellised verandah, overgrown with creepers, and its smooth lawn, shaded by the rare old cedar-trees which gave the place its name.

Our friends soon discovered its attractions and took care that we should not stagnate for want of society. We kept open house; lawn-tennis, garden-parties, and boating excursions were the order of the day. It was glorious summer weather, the days warm and golden, the lights starlit and still.

One night, having important letters to finish, I sat up writing after all the household were in bed. The window was open, and at intervals I glanced up from my paper across the moonlit lawn, where the shadows of the cedars lay dark and motionless. Now and then a great downy moth would flutter in and hover round the shaded lamp; now and then the swallows under the eaves uttered a faint, sleepy chirp. For all other signs and sounds of life I might have been the only watcher in all the sleeping world.

I had finished my task and was just closing my writing-case when I heard a hurried movement in the room above—Ethel’s. Footsteps descended the stairs, and the next moment the dining-room door opened, and Ethel appeared, in a long, white dressing-gown, with a small night-lamp in her hand.

There was a look on her face which made me start up and exclaim:

“What is the matter? What has happened?”

She set down the lamp and came towards me.

“I have heard it again,” she breathed, laying her hand on my wrist.

“You have heard—what?”

“The noise in the box-room.”

I stared at her a moment in bewilderment, and then half smiled.

“Oh, is that it?” I exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “You have been dreaming again, it seems.”

“I have not been asleep at all,” she replied. “The sounds have kept me awake. They are louder than the first time; the child seems to be sobbing and crying as if his heart would break. It is miserable to hear it.”

“Have you looked inside?” I asked, impressed in spite of myself by her manner.

“No, I dared not to-night. I was afraid of seeing—something,” she returned with a shiver.

“Come, we must get to the bottom of this mystery,” I said cheerfully, and taking up the lamp I led the way upstairs to her room.

As the door of the mysterious closet was level with the wall, and papered like it, I did not perceive it till Ethel pointed it out. I listened with my ear close to it, but heard not the faintest sound, and after waiting a moment, threw it open and looked in, holding the lamp so that every corner was lighted. It was a cramped, close, airless place, the ceiling (which was immediately below the upper staircase) sloping at an acute angle to the floor. A glance showed me that it contained nothing but a broken chair and a couple of empty boxes.

Slightly shrugging my shoulders, I closed the door.

“Your ghost is ‘vox et praeterea nihil,’ it seems,” I remarked drily. “Don’t you think, Ethel, you may have been—”

Ethel held up her hand, motioning me to silence.

“Hark,” she whispered, “there it is again! But it is dying away now. Listen—”

I complied, half infected by her excitement, but within and without the house all was profoundly still.

“There—it has ceased,” she said at length, drawing a deep breath. “You heard it, did you not?”

I shook my head. “My dear Ethel, there was nothing to hear.”

She opened her blue eyes to their widest.

“Papa—am I not to believe the evidence of my own senses?”

“Not when they are affected by nervous excitement. If you give way to this fancy, you will certainly make yourself ill. See how you tremble! Come, lie down again, and try to sleep.”

“Not here,” she returned, glancing round with a shudder. “I shall go to the spare chamber. Nothing would induce me to spend another night in this room.”

I said no more, but I felt perplexed and uneasy. It was so unlike Ethel to indulge in superstitious fancies that I began to fear she must be seriously out of health, and I resolved for my own satisfaction to have a doctor’s opinion regarding her.

It happened that our nearest neighbour was a physician, whom I knew by repute, though not personally acquainted with him. After breakfast, without mentioning my intention to my daughter, I sent a note to Dr. Cameron, requesting him to call at his earliest convenience.

He came without delay: a tall, grey-bearded man of middle age, with a grave, intelligent face, observant eyes and sympathetic manner.

His patient received him with undisguised astonishment, and on learning that he had called at my request, she gave me a look of mute reproach.

“I am sorry that papa troubled you, Dr. Cameron. There is really nothing whatever the matter with me,” she said.

And indeed at that moment, with flushed cheeks, and eyes even brighter than usual, she looked as little like an invalid as could well be imagined.

“My dear Ethel,” I interposed, “when people take to dreaming startling dreams, and hearing supernatural sounds, it is a sign of something wrong with either mind or body—as I am sure Dr. Cameron will tell you.”

The doctor started perceptibly. “Ah—is that Miss Dysart’s case?” he enquired, turning to her with a sudden look of interest.

She coloured and hesitated. “I have had a strange—experience, which papa considers a delusion. I daresay you will be of the same opinion.”

“Suppose you tell me what it was?” he suggested.

She was silent, trifling with one of her silver bangles.

“Please excuse me,” she said hurriedly, at length. “I don’t care to speak of it; but papa will tell you.” And before I could detain her, she had hurriedly left the room.

When we were alone he turned to me enquiringly, and in a few words I related to him what the reader already knows. He listened without interruption, and when I had finished, sat for some moments without speaking, thoughtfully stroking his beard.

He was evidently impressed by what he had heard, and I waited anxiously for his opinion. At length he looked up.

“Mr. Dysart,” he said, gravely, “you will be surprised to learn that your daughter is not the first who has had this strange ‘experience.’ Previous tenants of The Cedars have heard exactly the sounds which she describes.”

I pushed my chair back half-a-yard in my astonishment.

“Impossible!”

He nodded emphatically.

“It is a fact, though I don’t pretend to explain it. These strange manifestations have been noticed at intervals for the last three or four years; ever since the house was occupied by a Captain Vandeleur, whose orphan nephew—”

“Vandeleur?” I interrupted; “why, he was a client of ours. He insured his nephew’s life in our office for a large amount, and—”

“And a few months afterwards, the child suddenly and mysteriously died?” my companion put in. “A singular coincidence, to say the least of it.”

“So singular,” I acquiesced, “that we thought it a case for enquiry, particularly as the ex-captain did not bear the best of characters, and was known to be over head and ears in debt. But I am bound to say that after the closest investigation nothing was discovered to suggest a suspicion of foul play.”

“Nevertheless there had been foul play,” was the doctor’s reply.

“You don’t mean that he murdered the boy! that pretty, fragile-looking little fellow—”

“No, he did not murder him, but he let him die,” Dr. Cameron rejoined. “Perhaps you were not aware,” he continued, “that the little lad was somewhat feeble in mind as well as body? I attended him more than once, at Vandeleur’s request, and found that among other strange fears and antipathies he had a morbid dread of darkness. To be left alone in a dark room for only a few minutes was enough to throw him into a paroxysm of nervous excitement. His uncle—who by the way, professed more affection for him than I could quite believe in, when I noticed how the child shrank from him—consulted me as to the best means of overcoming this weakness. I strongly advised him to humour it for the present, warning him that any mental shock might endanger the boy’s reason, or even his life. I little thought those words of mine would prove his death warrant.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only a few days afterwards, Vandeleur locked him up all night in a dark closet, where he was found the next morning, crouching against the wall; his hands clenched, his eyes fixed and staring—dead.”

“Good heavens, how horrible! But no word of this was mentioned at the inquest?”

“No; and I did not hear of it myself till long afterwards, from a woman who had been Vandeleur’s housekeeper, but was too much afraid of him to betray him at the time. From her, too, I learnt by what refined cruelty the poor little lad’s nerves had been shaken and his health undermined. If ‘the intention makes the deed,’ James Vandeleur was a murderer.”

I was silent a moment, thinking, with an uncomfortable thrill, of Ethel’s dream. “I wish I had never entered this ill-omened house!” I exclaimed at length. “I dread the effect of this revelation on my daughter’s mind.”

“Why need you tell her?” he questioned. “My advice is to say nothing more about it. The sooner she forgets the subject the better. Send her away to the sea-side; change of air and scene will soon efface it from her memory.”

He rose as he spoke, and took up his hat.

“What has become of Vandeleur?” I enquired. “I have heard nothing of him since we paid the policy.”

“He has been living abroad, I believe—going to the dogs, no doubt. But he is in England now,” the doctor added: “or else it was his ‘fetch’ which I saw at your gate the other night.”

“At our gate!” I echoed in astonishment. “What the deuce was he doing there?”

“He seemed to be watching the house. It was last Sunday evening. I had been dining with friends at Richmond, and on my way back, between eleven and twelve o’clock, I noticed a man leaning over the gate of The Cedars. On hearing footsteps he turned and walked away, but not before I had caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight.”

“And you are sure it was he?”

“Almost certain—though he was greatly altered for the worse. I have a presentiment, do you know, that you will see or hear of him yourself before long,” he added thoughtfully, as he shook hands and went his way.

I lost no time in following his advice with regard to Ethel, whom I despatched to Scarborough, in charge of my married sister, a few days later.

I had taken a hearty dislike to The Cedars, and resolved to get it off my hands as soon as might be.

Until another tenant could be found however, I continued to occupy it, going to and from town as before.

One evening I was sitting on the lawn, smoking an after-dinner cigar, and re-reading Ethel’s last letter, which quite reassured me as to her health and spirits, when our sedate old housekeeper presented herself with the information that “a party” had called to see the house.

“A gentleman or a lady?” I enquired.

“A gentleman, sir, but he didn’t give his name.”

I found the visitor standing near the open window of the drawing-room; a tall, gaunt man of thirty-five or thereabouts, with handsome but haggard features, and restless dark eyes. His lips were covered by a thick moustache, which he was nervously twisting as he stood looking out at the lawn.

“This house is to be let, I believe; will you allow me to look over it?” he asked, turning towards me as I entered.

His voice seemed familiar; I looked at him more closely, and then, in spite of the change in his appearance, I recognised Captain Vandeleur.

What could have brought him here, I wondered. Surely he would not care to return to the house, even if he were in a position to do so—which, judging from the shabbiness of his appearance, seemed very doubtful.

Half-a-dozen vague conjectures flashed through my mind, as I glanced at his face, and noticed the restless, “hunted” look which told of some wearing dread or anxiety.

After a moment’s hesitation I assented to his request, and resolved to conduct him myself on his tour of inspection.

“I think I have met you before,” I said, feeling curious to know whether he recollected me.

He glanced at me absently.

“Possibly—but not of late years; for I have been living abroad,” was his reply.

Having shown him the apartments on the ground-floor, I led the way upstairs. He followed me from room to room in an absent, listless fashion, till we came to the chamber which Ethel had occupied. Then his interest seemed to revive all at once.

He glanced quickly round the walls, his eyes resting on the door of the box-closet.

“That is a bath or dressing-room, I suppose,” he said, nodding towards it.

“No, only a place for lumber. Perhaps I ought to tell you that it is said to be haunted,” I added, affecting to speak carelessly, while I kept my eyes on his face.

He started and turned towards me.

“Haunted—by what?” he enquired, with a faint sneer. “Nothing worse than rats or mice, I expect.”

“There is a tragical story connected with that place,” I answered, deliberately. “It is said that an unfortunate child was shut up there to die of fear, in the dark.”

The colour rushed to his face, then retreated, leaving it deadly white.

“Indeed!” he faltered; “and do you mean to say that he—the child—has been seen?”

“No, but he has been heard, knocking within, and crying to be let out. The fact is confirmed by every tenant who has occupied the house since—”

I stopped short, startled by the effect of my revelation.

My companion was gazing at me with a blank stare of horror which banished all other expression from his face.

“Good heavens!” I heard him mutter; “can it be true? Can this be the reason why I was drawn back to the place in spite of myself?”

Recollecting himself, however, he turned to me, and forced his white lips into a smile.

“A mysterious story!” he commented, drily. “I don’t believe a word of it, myself, but I should hardly care to take a house with such an uncanny reputation. I think I need not trouble you any further.”

As he turned towards the door, I saw his figure sway as if he were falling. He put his hand to his side, with a gasp of pain, a bluish shade gathering over his face.

“Are you ill?” I exclaimed, in alarm.

“I—it is nothing. I have a weakness of the heart, and I am subject to these attacks. May I ask you for a glass of water?”

I left the room to procure it. When I returned I found that he had fallen upon the bed in a dead swoon.

I hastily despatched a servant for Dr. Cameron, who happened to be at home, and came immediately.

He recognised my visitor at once, and glanced at me significantly. I rapidly explained what had happened, while he bent over the unconscious man, and bared his chest to listen to the heart-beats.

When he raised himself his face was ominously grave.

“Is he in danger?” I asked, quickly.

“Not in immediate danger, but the next attack will probably be his last. His heart is mortally diseased.”

It was nearly an hour before Vandeleur awoke, and then only to partial consciousness. He lay in a sort of stupor, his limbs nerveless, his hands damp and cold.

“It is impossible to remove him in this condition,” the doctor remarked; “I fear he must stay here for the night. I will send you someone to watch him.”

“Don’t trouble—I intend to sit up with him myself,” I replied, speaking on an impulse I could hardly explain.

He looked at me keenly over his spectacles.

“Should you like me to share your watch?” he enquired, after a moment.

“I shall be only too glad of your company, if you can come without inconvenience.”

He nodded.

“I must leave you now, but I will return in an hour,” he responded.

•    •    •    •

Three hours had passed away; it was nearly midnight. The night was oppressively close, and profoundly still. The bedroom window stood wide open, but not a breath of air stirred the curtains. Outside, all was vague and dark, for neither moon nor stars were visible.

Vandeleur still lay, half-dressed, on the bed, but now asleep. His deep, regular breathing sounded distinctly in the silence. Dr. Cameron sat near the dressing-table, reading by the light of a shaded lamp. I, too, had a book, but found it impossible to keep my attention fixed upon it. My mind was possessed by an uneasy feeling, half dread, half expectation. I found myself listening nervously to fancied sounds, and starting when the doctor turned a leaf.

At length, overcome by the heat and stillness, I closed my eyes, and unconsciously sank into a doze. How long it lasted I cannot tell, but I woke abruptly, and looked round with a sense of vague alarm. I glanced at the doctor. He had laid down his book, and was leaning forward with one arm on the dressing-table, looking intently towards the door of the box-room. Instinctively I held my breath and listened.

Never shall I forget the thrill that ran through my nerves when I heard from within a muffled knocking sound, and a child’s voice, distinct, though faint, and broken by sobs, crying piteously: “Let me out—let me out!”

“Do you hear?” I whispered, bending forward to my companion.

He inclined his head in assent and motioned me to be silent, pointing towards the bed. Its occupant moved uneasily, as if disturbed, muttering some incoherent phrases. Suddenly he pushed back his covering and sat upright, gazing round with a wild, bewildered stare.

The pitiful entreaty was repeated more violently, more passionately than before. “Let me out, let me out!”

With a cry that rang through the room, Vandeleur sprang from the bed, reached the closet door in two strides and tore it open.

It was empty. Empty at least to our eyes, but it was evident that our companion beheld what we could not.

For a few breathless seconds he stood as if frozen, his eyes fixed with the fascination of terror on something just within the threshold; then, as if retreating before it, he recoiled step by step across the room till he was stopped by the opposite wall, where he crouched in an attitude of abject fear.

The sight was so horrible that I could bear it no longer.

“Are you dreaming? wake up!” I exclaimed, and shook his shoulder.

He raised his eyes, and looked at me vacantly. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. Suddenly a convulsive shudder ran through him and he fell heavily forward at my feet.

“He has swooned again,” I said turning to my companion, who stooped and lifted the drooping head on to his knee.

After one glance, he laid it gently down again.

“He is dead,” was his grave reply.

•    •    •    •

And with Vandeleur’s death my story ends, for after that night the sounds were heard no more. The forlorn little ghost was at rest.

The Strange Story of Our Villa

(Jan. 1893)

“‘Villa de l’Orient, Avenue des Citronniers, Nice’—really, our address looks uncommonly well at the head of a letter,” remarked Mrs. Brandon, contemplating, with her head on one side, the effect of the words she had just written.

“It really does,” we agreed in chorus. We always agreed with Mrs. Brandon; it saved trouble.

We were three “lone-lorn” females—two spinsters and a widow—who had agreed to share a house—or, rather, part of a house, for we occupied but one story—at Nice for the winter.

First there was Mrs. Brandon—our chaperon, housekeeper, and directress in chief—tall, blonde, majestic, with a calm, suave manner, and a quietly distinct voice, which always made itself heard and obeyed; then came Miss Lucy Lester, a plump, good-tempered little lady of a certain age, with a round, smiling face, kindly blue eyes, and not an angle about her, either moral or physical. Lastly there was the present writer, who modestly prefers to leave her portrait to the reader’s imagination, trusting that he will paint it in the most attractive colours at his disposal.

The supplementary members of the party were Mrs. Brandon’s daughter Georgie, an over-grown school-girl of thirteen; Georgie’s inseparable companion, “Chum,” a small, sharp, and extremely impudent fox-terrier; and Joséphine, our stout French bonne who inhabited a microscopic kitchen, which her capacious person entirely filled.

In spite of its name there was nothing in the least Oriental about the appearance of “our villa.” It was simply a good-sized, square, pink-and-white house, looking, Georgie said, as if it were built of nougat, with green balconies and shutters, and a semi-circular flight of steps to the front door. It stood in the midst of an extensive garden, planted with orange and lemon trees, and sheltered on one side by a rocky hill, which rose above it, sheer and straight, like a natural wall. At the end of the garden was a rustic bench, sheltered by a gnarled old olive-tree.

The house was furnished with remarkable taste. The house-agent, through whom we took our appartement, informed us that the landlord, M. de Valeyre—a gentleman of good birth, though not of large means, who was now on a shooting tour in Corsica—had spent many years of his life in the East, and our rooms contained not a few souvenirs of his travels in the shape of ornaments, rugs, and draperies, to say nothing of his own clever oil-sketches of Oriental life and scenery which adorned the walls.

The rooms, though decidedly small, were bright and airy, and the outlook on the garden, where the oranges were ripening under their glossy leaves, delightful. Altogether we felt we might congratulate ourselves on our good fortune.

“Yes,” proceeded our “chief,” glancing complacently around her—we were sitting in the dining-room after lunch on the third day of our arrival—“it is really a trouvaille. So charmingly situated, so well furnished, and so cheap! We might have looked all over Nice and found nothing to suit us so well.”

“We might, indeed,” assented Lucy Lester, who generally echoed the last speaker. “One could wish, perhaps, that the bedrooms were a little larger—”

“And that they did not open one out of the other like a nest of boxes, of which mine is the inside box,” I ventured to add.

Mrs. Brandon glanced at me austerely over her eyeglass.

“If we, whom you disturb by passing through our rooms, do not object to that, I know you need not,” she observed reprovingly.

“But it seems you do object,” I returned. “Every morning I am greeted with anathemas ‘not loud, but deep,’ half smothered under the bed-clothes.”

“Why will you persist in getting up at such unearthly hours, waking people out of their beauty sleep?”

“I don’t mind that,” put in Georgie, who was teaching Chum to balance a pencil on his nose; “but I do wish the woman upstairs would not make such a noise at night; I can’t go to sleep for her. The ceilings are so thin, one hears every sound.”

“The woman upstairs?” her mother repeated. “What do you mean, child? There is no one in the house but ourselves. The upper stories and the ground floor are unlet.”

“There is some one in the room above mine all the same,” Georgie persisted. “She keeps me awake by walking about overhead, sometimes muttering and laughing to herself, and sometimes sobbing as if her heart would break. Last night I stood up on the bed and rapped the ceiling with my umbrella to silence her, but she kept on all the same. Chum heard her too—didn’t you, sir?”

Chum, glad of any interruption to his lesson, barked an emphatic assent.

“Well, now, that is very strange,” Miss Lester remarked, dropping her knitting. “I have fancied, myself, do you know, that I heard some one moving about, overhead; not only at night, but in the daytime.”

“Perhaps there is some servant or caretaker left in charge of the rooms,” Mrs. Brandon said after a pause; “I will ask M. Gillet when next I see him.”

We saw M. Gillet, the house-agent, the following day. He called, as he explained politely, to ask after the health of “these ladies,” and to ascertain if we were satisfied with our “installation.”

He was a round, fat, oily man of middle age, with a bland manner and a propitiatory smile.

“We are quite well and perfectly satisfied,” Mrs. Brandon replied graciously, answering for us all, as usual. “But I thought you told us, M. Gillet, that the upstairs rooms were unoccupied?”

“So they are, madame. There is no one in the house but yourselves and your servant.”

“Then who is it my daughter hears at night in the room above hers?” He raised his eyebrows, glancing inquiringly at Georgie.

“I hear a woman walking about and talking to herself,” she explained. “I can’t understand what she says; it is not French.”

“Ah!” His face changed from smiling incredulity to startled gravity. He drew in his lips and looked perturbed.

“It must be Madame de Valeyre,” he muttered; “it can be no one else. Just like her to turn up again in this mysterious fashion without a word of warning! Monsieur will be furious when he knows she is here, and I shall certainly think it my duty to inform him at once.”

“Are you speaking of our landlord’s wife?” I inquired. He assented.

“But why should he be displeased? Has she not a right to occupy her own house?”

“Well—no—that is just it. When they separated by mutual consent a year ago it was expressly stipulated, as a condition of his making her an allowance, that she should not return here, or in any way molest him. I had it from his own lips.”

“Why did they separate?” Miss Lester inquired, curiously.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“‘Incompatibility of temper’ was the reason given, but, of course, there were others. The fact is, it was one of those madly romantic marriages which never do turn out well—except in novels. She was an Arab girl whom he picked up somewhere in Algeria, and insisted on marrying, to the scandal of his family and friends—that is her portrait,” he added, nodding towards a picture on the wall; “painted by Monsieur himself, soon after his marriage.”

We looked with interest at the canvas; a slight but clever oil-sketch of a young Arab girl, with an oval olive-tinted face of striking beauty, and strange passionate dark eyes with a smouldering fire in their depths. Under it was written “Ayesha,” and a date.

“Yes, she was handsome, then,” he admitted, in answer to our comments, “but half a savage, and more than half a heathen, though supposed to have been converted. I heard that in the early days of their marriage she spent most of her time concocting charms and potions ‘to keep her husband’s love.’ Apparently they were not the right sort,” he added drily; “he soon wearied of her; then there were scenes, tears, upbraidings. Madame was jealous—(with cause, if report spoke truly); Monsieur had a temper—enfin no one was surprised when, just a year ago, M. de Valeyre announced that they had separated by mutual consent, and that Madame had returned to her friends. Since then he has been travelling, and no doubt is much happier without her.”

“While she, poor soul, is fretting her heart out,” Mrs. Brandon put in; “though I have no doubt he was a brute to her.”

The agent shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating smile.

“There were faults on both sides, Madame; but it was hardly possible for any man to live in peace with such a toquée as she is.”

“Toquée?” Mrs. Brandon repeated; “do you mean that she is mad? If so, it is certainly not pleasant to have her in the house.”

“Mais non, Madame!” he protested; “she is not mad; only eccentric, erratic, capricious. Her returning in this mysterious way is a proof of it. Of course I have no right to interfere with her, but I shall certainly let M. de Valeyre know at once that she is here. You must not be subjected to this annoyance.”

After a few more words he took his leave.

The days that followed were fully and pleasantly occupied in exploring Nice and its environs, which were new to all of us. We sunned ourselves on the Promenade des Anglais; drove on the Cornice Road; heard the band in the Jardin Public, and loitered among the tempting shops on the Place Massena; all in due course. The weather was glorious. Sunny days and moonlit nights succeeded each other in uninterrupted splendour, and made it difficult for us to believe that we were actually within a few weeks of Christmas.

The presence of the mysterious Madame de Valeyre in the house was no longer a matter of doubt. Not only had we all heard her restless footsteps overhead, and the unintelligible muttering which sounded so strangely uncanny, but more than once we had caught sight of her—a tall slender figure clad in a loose white wrapper—pacing to and fro in the shadowy garden alleys, or sitting on the bench under the gnarled old olive-tree. Once, at dusk, I met her on the stair-case flitting silently upstairs to her own lonely rooms, but she passed me quickly without returning my salutation, or even glancing at me.

“C’est drôle!” Joséphine often remarked; “to shut herself up like that, without even a servant. And how does she get her food? she never seems to go beyond the gates.”

We agreed that it was “drôle,” but did not trouble ourselves greatly about the matter, having more interesting occupation for our thoughts.

One evening, in the third week of our tenancy, the others were gone to the theatre, and I, pleading letters to write, had remained at home with no companion but “Chum,” having given Joséphine permission to go out.

Chum, by the way, was the only one of the party who did not appear to like his winter quarters. He had not been in his usual rude health and spirits since we came to the Villa, but seemed restless and depressed. Even now, as he lay curled up on my gown, he could not sleep quietly, but kept waking up with a start and a shiver, looking uneasily about him.

I sat in the dining-room, out of which the other rooms opened. To the right was the curtained doorway (doors there were none) of the salon—to the left, that which admitted to Mrs. Brandon’s bedroom, leading out of which was Miss Lester’s. The dressing-room of the latter had been converted into a bedroom for Georgie, and the last of the suite was my own chamber.

The evening was warm and very still. Glancing through the open window, which was shaded by a tall eucalyptus, I caught a glimpse of a sky full of stars, and over the tree-tops a line of tremulous silver showed where the sea lay sleeping.

As I lowered my head to my writing again, my eye was arrested by a slight movement of the portière which screened the drawing-room doorway. I looked up quickly, but seeing nothing unusual, concluded I had been mistaken. I was writing busily again, when the dog stirred uneasily, growled, then suddenly sprang to his feet, gazing, with dilated eyes and ears erect, towards the door. As I involuntarily looked again in the same direction, I was startled to see a hand, the long slender hand of a woman, put forth from within to draw the curtain back. For a moment it remained motionless, grasping the portiere, and I had time to note every detail of its form and colour; the fine but dusky skin, the delicate taper fingers, on one of which gleamed a quaint snake-shaped gold ring. Then the curtain was abruptly withdrawn, and a figure appeared in the opening: a tall, slender woman, enveloped in a loose wrapper of some gauzy Algerian stuff.

It was Madame de Valeyre. I had never had a full view of her face before, but I recognised her at once as the original of the portrait: thinner, older, with a wild and troubled look in her lovely dark eyes, but the same.

Too startled to speak, I stared at her, and she looked back as silently and as fixedly at me. Then, before I could rise or address her, my strange visitor crossed the room with a calm and leisurely step, and passed through the opposite doorway.

Recovering from my surprise, I caught up the lamp and followed her. She had already traversed Mrs. Brandon’s bedroom, and was passing into the one beyond.

“Pardon, Madame—” I called after her; but she neither paused nor turned till she reached the threshold of my own room, the inner one of the suite.

Drawing back the portière with one hand, she looked at me over her shoulder—a look that thrilled me, so earnest it was, so imperious, so fraught with meaning to which I had not the clue—but uttered not a word. Then she passed in, and the heavy curtain dropped behind her.

In a second’s space I had followed her into the room.

To my utter astonishment she was not there. I looked round blankly, raising the lamp above my head. There was no other door but that by which she had entered; no closet, no cupboard, no recess in which she could be concealed. And yet she was gone, vanished, it seemed, into thin air. For a moment I stood, looking about me in utter bewilderment; then a sort of panic seized me—an irrational fear of I knew not what or whom.

I hurried back through the empty and silent rooms, not daring to cast a glance behind me; and feeling a sudden distaste for the dining-room, took refuge in the tiny kitchen, where I sat with Chum on my lap, starting nervously at every sound, till the others returned.

I had decided to say nothing of what had occurred to Miss Lester or Georgie, lest it should alarm them, but Mrs. Brandon I must tell, for the relief of my own mind, though I hardly expected she would believe my story. In fact it seemed, even to myself, so incredible that I could well excuse her scepticism.

It was as I anticipated. She heard me out with a look of mingled astonishment and incredulity.

“My dear Edith,” she said when I had finished; “excuse me, but—are you quite sure you did not fall asleep and dream all this?”

“I am quite sure that I was as wide awake then as I am now.”

“But it is so utterly unaccountable,” she objected; “not only her disappearance, but her appearance. How did she get into the drawing-room in the first instance? She was not there when we went out I am certain, and she could not have entered it afterwards without your seeing her. Why did you not ask her what she wanted—what she meant by it?”

“I was too startled at first, and when I recovered myself she had vanished.”

“Well, I hope I shall encounter her myself,” Mrs. Brandon remarked resolutely; “she shall not ‘vanish’ again till she has explained the matter, I promise you. We can’t have her prowling about our rooms like a Banshee.”

But the days passed on, and we caught no further glimpse of Madame de Valeyre.

•    •    •    •

It was the last day of the old year—a day so brilliant, so warm, serene, and sunny, that it would not have disgraced an English midsummer. Long after Georgie had retired for the night, we three elders sat round the handful of wood fire which we kept in more for the sake of cheerfulness than warmth, talking of old times, old friends and old scenes, in that retrospective mood which falls on most of us at such seasons.

“I wonder if that poor woman upstairs will have any one to wish her ‘Bonne Année’ to-morrow?” Miss Lester remarked during a pause in the conversation. “Fancy how triste to be spending New Year’s Eve alone! I thought I heard her crying just now.”

We listened, and sure enough a sound of suppressed sobbing, inexpressibly sad and forlorn, reached us from the room above.

“Poor soul!” Mrs. Brandon exclaimed compassionately. “I feel strongly inclined to go upstairs and see if there is anything I can do to help or comfort her, but there is no knowing how she might take it. She is evidently more than a little toquée as M. Gillet told us. If that husband of hers—”

She left the sentence unfinished, and we all started as a sound of wheels reached us, coming rapidly up the garden drive, and stopping at the door. The next moment there was a loud peal at the bell.

“Who can it be at this hour? it is past eleven o’clock!” I exclaimed.

“Perhaps it is Monsieur de Valeyre,” Lucy Lester suggested suddenly. I rose, and, cautiously opening the window, glanced down into the garden. The moonlight showed me a tall man’s figure just alighting from a fiacre the driver of which was handing down a guncase and a portmanteau.

“It is our landlord, sure enough,” I said, closing the window. “Monsieur Gillet’s information has brought him home, I suppose. I hope there will be no ‘scene’ upstairs.”

“Dear me, I hope not!” Lucy echoed; though the anticipated excitement seemed not altogether unpleasing to her.

“He is evidently not remarkable for patience,” was Mrs. Brandon’s comment, as another still louder peal rang though the house. “If Madame does not choose to admit him, one of us must go down. Joséphine is in bed long ago.”

I volunteered for the task, and, Lucy offering to accompany me, we descended, noisily escorted by Chum.

The fiacre was driving away as we opened the door, and the visitor stood on the step, looking out at the moonlit garden.

He turned, and, expecting no doubt to see a servant, was beginning an impatient exclamation at the delay, but checked himself on perceiving us.

“A hundred pardons, Mesdames, for disturbing you at this untimely hour,” he said, raising his hat; “but I have only just arrived from Corsica. I am Monsieur de Valeyre,” he added.

I bowed, and drew back to admit him, trying in vain to silence Chum, whose bark was now exchanged for a low, angry growl.

The visitor was a tall, well-built, bronze-complexioned man of six or seven and thirty, with a face which would have been strikingly handsome but for its worn and haggard look, and something repellent in the expression of the bold dark eyes.

“Your dog objects to strangers, apparently,” he said, with a glance of no great favour at the terrier, who responded with a snarl which showed all his little sharp white teeth.

“He is a capital watch-dog,” I said, apologetically; “he would soon let us know if there were thieves in the house.”

“Ah, that reminds me—” He turned as he spoke, to put up the door-chain. “I hear from Gillet, my agent, that you were alarmed on your arrival by strange noises in the upper rooms. Do they still continue?”

“We were not alarmed exactly, but they puzzled us till we knew that Madame de Valeyre had returned.”

He let fall the door-chain and turned to look at me.

“Madame de Valeyre?” he repeated.

“Yes; did not M. Gillet tell you, Monsieur, that she was here?”

“He told me you had said so, but I could not believe it; I cannot believe it now. She—my wife—is with her family at Algiers, and it is not likely she would have returned without letting me know.”

“She is in the house at this moment,” I said, quietly; “she has been here for the last month. We have not only heard but seen her repeatedly—have we not?” I added, turning to my companion, who echoed, “Repeatedly!”

He looked from one to the other of us with a frown, but said nothing; and, having secured the fastening of the door, took up his portmanteau and followed us upstairs.

“May I ask you to lend me your light for a moment?” he said, when we reached the landing; “I will return it presently.”

Nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed before he descended. We heard him going from room to room, opening and shutting doors and windows, but no sound of voices reached us.

At last he reappeared at the open door of our sitting-room, candle in hand. Mrs. Brandon herself went forward to take it from him, looking at him scrutinizingly as she did so.

“Many thanks, Madame,” he said, relinquishing it to her with a bow. Then, turning to me, he added, coldly: “You were mistaken in supposing that my wife had returned. There is no living creature in the rooms upstairs, nor have they been entered since I left them.”

“But we have seen her—” I began.

“Whoever you may have seen, it was certainly not my wife,” was his reply.

Before I could speak again, he added:

“I have the honour to wish you good-evening, Mesdames,” and, with a comprehensive bow which included us all, he left the room.

We looked at each other bewilderedly. What did it mean? What had become of the woman?

“She must have heard his voice, and hidden herself somewhere, in fear of him,” Miss Lester suggested.

“Depend upon it, she has reason to fear him,” Mrs. Brandon remarked. “He looks like a man who would use his power mercilessly. It is dreadful to think of that poor half-demented creature being left unprotected to his anger, perhaps violence.”

Lucy Lester drew her shawl closer round her with a shiver.

“I feel as if something terrible was going to happen,” she said nervously.

The same uneasy presentiment weighed on my own mind, together with some other shadowy fear which I could not have put into words.

Feeling too anxious and excited to go to bed, we gathered round the fire again, talking in whispers, and listening apprehensively to every sound from above. For a time we heard M. de Valeyre moving about; then there was silence, only interrupted when the time-piece, chiming midnight, reminded us to wish each other a Happy New Year.

After that I must have fallen into a doze, from which I was roused by a touch on my arm.

“Edith,” Mrs. Brandon whispered, “do you hear?”

I started and sat upright, looking about me in the confusion of a sudden awakening. “What is it?” I asked.

Keeping her hand on my arm, she pointed upwards. The light restless footsteps we had grown to know so well, were once more pacing to and fro overhead, and we heard the low intermittent murmur of a woman’s voice. Suddenly it was interrupted by a cry—a man’s hoarse cry of mortal anguish or terror, such as I trust I may never hear again.

Mingling with the cry, came a peal of eldritch laughter, then the sound of a struggle, and a heavy fall which shook the house.

“Come, or there will be murder done,” Mrs. Brandon exclaimed, and she hurried from the room and upstairs, followed by Miss Lester and myself.

We found the outer door of M. de Valeyre’s apartments closed, but not locked, and passing through the antechamber, entered the first room of the suite. A lamp on the chimney-piece showed that it was in strange disorder; the furniture displaced, the carpet upturned, the cloth half-dragged from the table.

Its only present occupant was the master of the house, who crouched against the wall at the further end, in an attitude of abject terror.

Never while I live shall I forget the face he turned towards us when we entered. With strained dilated eyes, and parted lips, it looked like an image of incarnate Fear. I stopped short over the threshold, feeling a shrinking reluctance to enter, but Mrs. Brandon without hesitation advanced to his side.

“What is the matter? What has happened?” she asked.

He looked at her vaguely, but seemed incapable of uttering a word, and put his hand to his throat as if suffocating. There was a carafe of brandy on the table. She filled a liqueur glass and held it to his lips. Presently he drew a deep sobbing breath, and half raised himself, glancing round the room with a haggard look of dread.

“Is she—gone?” he asked hoarsely.

“There is no one here but ourselves,” Mrs. Brandon replied. “You—” She broke off, recoiling from him with a stifled cry.

He had started convulsively, and was gazing with a look of speechless terror at some object on the opposite side of the room. Involuntarily we followed the direction of his eyes, but to us nothing was visible.

“There she is—look!” he gasped. “My wife—dead, yet living. Keep her from me—keep her hands from my throat! Ayesha—mercy—pardon! Oh, Heaven.”

He crouched against the wall again, putting out both hands to repel some invisible assailant; struggling desperately as if with an actual bodily antagonist, and apparently using all his strength to keep the murderous fingers from his throat.

Mrs. Brandon had fled from him in a panic, and we all three stood on the threshold, watching with horror-struck eyes that ghastly struggle. It did not last long. With a dreadful choking cry he dropped his arms; his whole figure collapsed and fell in a heap, face downwards, on the floor.

Strangely enough my fear had now utterly passed away. While the others hesitated I approached him and lifted his head, and turned his face to the light. After one glance I laid it down again with a shudder. “Has he fainted again?” they asked me. “He is dead,” I answered, as I rose.

Yes, he was dead; but how had he died? What was the meaning of those livid finger-marks, which, for a moment, I had seen plainly printed on his throat? That is a mystery which has never been solved.

•    •    •    •

The sudden death of the master of the Villa de l’Orient caused a sensation in Nice, where he was well known, and it was intensified by a rumour that Madame de Valeyre had mysteriously disappeared. There was no trace of her recent presence in the house, and it was ascertained that her relatives in Algeria had had no news of her for more than a year. Some other facts came to light which threw a sinister suspicion on the dead man. Search was made in the garden and grounds, and finally her body was discovered buried under the old olive-tree. An Algerian scarf, tightly knotted round her throat, showed what had been the manner of her death.

It need hardly be said that we took flight as soon as possible from the ill-omened house, which was shortly afterwards demolished by order of the Valeyre family, so that not a vestige now remains of what we once called “our villa.”

About this eBook

SHADOWS FROM BEYOND

THE GHOST STORIES
OF
MARY ELIZABETH PENN
(no biographical data found)

In these eight atmospheric Victorian tales, ghosts of love thwarted, innocence betrayed, or duties unfulfilled return from the shadowy borders of beyond to engage with the living. Penn’s ghosts are poignant rather than malevolent; they do not conjure terror, but instead a sense of the uncanny strangeness of the supernatural.

* * * *

This writer of supernatural and crime stories was a regular contributor to the British periodical The Argosy beginning in the mid-1870s. After Penn’s last attributed story appeared in 1897, the author vanished from the literary world.

Nothing is known about Mary Elizabeth Penn. Scholars have been unable to find any details, including birth and death dates, or even gender. Alastair Gunn, in the introduction to The Ghost Stories of Mary E. Penn (2017), advances a theory that this may have been one of the many pen-names of noted Victorian author Ellen (Mrs. Henry) Wood (1814-1887). [See: http://synfinity.blogspot.com/2017/11/who-was-ghost-story-writer-mary-e-penn.html ]

This compilation was created by ECM for MobileRead.com, October 2018, and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

The contents of this book were first published 1876 ~ 1893 in The Argosy.

Click here for editing notes.

+

EDITING NOTES

>>TOC     >>ABOUT

This is my own compilation. Texts were obtained from magazine archives at the Internet Archive and HathiTrust. OCR errors were corrected; punctuation, diacritics, and italics formatted.

Story titles are cross-linked to table of contents.

Embedded font “Fontin” by Jos Buivenga used for titling.

Validation by Pagina Epub Checker.