"He doesn't know she is there? Why, she was close by him. She never took
her eyes off him except when she was staring through me at the wall."
"Oh, he knows she is there, but not in that way. He doesn't know that
any one else knows."
I gave it up, and after a minute she said in a suppressed voice, "It
seems strange that you should have seen her. I never have."
"But you know all about her."
"I know and I don't know. Mrs. Vanderbridge lets things drop
sometimes--she gets ill and feverish very easily--but she never tells me
anything outright. She isn't that sort."
"Haven't the servants told you about her--the Other One?"
At this, I thought, she seemed startled. "Oh, they don't know anything
to tell. They feel that something is wrong; that is why they never stay
longer than a week or two--we've had eight butlers since autumn--but
they never see what it is."
She stooped to pick up the ball of yarn which had rolled under my chair.
"If the time ever comes when you can stand between them, you will do
it?" she asked.
"Between Mrs. Vanderbridge and the Other One?"
Her look answered me.
"You think, then, that she means harm to her?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows--but she is killing her."
The clock struck ten, and I returned to my book with a yawn, while
Hopkins gathered up her work and went out, after wishing me a formal
good night. The odd part about our secret conferences was that as soon
as they were over, we began to pretend so elaborately to each other that
they had never been.
"I'll tell Mrs. Vanderbridge that you are very comfortable," was the
last remark Hopkins made before she sidled out of the door and left me
alone with the mystery. It was one of those situations--I am obliged to
repeat this over and over--that was too preposterous for me to believe
even while I was surrounded and overwhelmed by its reality. I didn't
dare face what I thought, I didn't dare face even what I felt; but I
went to bed shivering in a warm room, while I resolved passionately that
if the chance ever came to me I would stand between Mrs. Vanderbridge
and this unknown evil that threatened her.
In the morning Mrs. Vanderbridge went out shopping, and I did not see
her until the evening, when she passed me on the staircase as she was
going out to dinner and the opera. She was radiant in blue velvet, with
diamonds in her hair and at her throat, and I wondered again how any one
so lovely could ever be troubled.
"I hope you had a pleasant day, Miss Wrenn," she said kindly. "I have
been too busy to get off any letters, but tomorrow we shall begin
early." Then, as if from an afterthought, she looked back and added,
"There are some new novels in my sitting-room. You might care to look
over them."
When she had gone, I went upstairs to the sitting-room and turned over
the books, but I couldn't, to save my life, force an interest in printed
romances after meeting Mrs. Vanderbridge and remembering the mystery
that surrounded her. I wondered if "the Other One," as Hopkins called
her, lived in the house, and I was still wondering this when the maid
came in and began putting the table to rights.
"Do they dine out often?" I asked.
"They used to, but since Mr. Vanderbridge hasn't been so well, Mrs.
Vanderbridge doesn't like to go without him. She only went tonight
because he begged her to."
She had barely finished speaking when the door opened, and Mr.
Vanderbridge came in and sat down in one of the big velvet chairs before
the wood fire. He had not noticed us, for one of his moods was upon him,
and I was about to slip out as noiselessly as I could when I saw that
the Other One was standing in the patch of firelight on the hearth rug.
I had not seen her come in, and Hopkins evidently was still unaware of
her presence, for while I was watching, I saw the maid turn towards her
with a fresh log for the fire. At the moment it occurred to me that
Hopkins must be either blind or drunk, for without hesitating in her
advance, she moved on the stranger, holding the huge hickory log out in
front of her. Then, before I could utter a sound or stretch out a hand
to stop her, I saw her walk straight through the gray figure and
carefully place the log on the andirons.
So she isn't real, after all, she is merely a phantom, I found myself
thinking, as I fled from the room, and hurried along the hall to the
staircase. She is only a ghost, and nobody believes in ghosts any
longer. She is something that I know doesn't exist, yet even, though she
can't possibly be, I can swear that I have seen her. My nerves were so
shaken by the discovery that as soon as I reached my room I sank in a
heap on the rug, and it was here that Hopkins found me a little later
when she came to bring me an extra blanket.
"You looked so upset I thought you might have seen something," she said.
"Did anything happen while you were in the room?"
"She was there all the time--every blessed minute. You walked right
through her when you put the log on the fire. Is it possible that you
didn't see her?"
"No, I didn't see anything out of the way." She was plainly frightened.
"Where was she standing?"
"On the hearthrug in front of Mr. Vanderbridge. To reach the fire you
had to walk straight through her, for she didn't move. She didn't give
way an inch."
"Oh, she never gives way. She never gives way living or dead."
This was more than human nature could stand. "In Heaven's name," I cried
irritably, "who is she?"
"Don't you know?" She appeared genuinely surprised. "Why, she is the
other Mrs. Vanderbridge. She died fifteen years ago, just a year after
they were married, and people say a scandal was hushed up about her,
which he never knew. She isn't a good sort, that's what I think of her,
though they say he almost worshipped her."
"And she still has this hold on him?"
"He can't shake it off, that's what's the matter with him, and if it
goes on, he will end his days in an asylum. You see, she was very young,
scarcely more than a girl, and he got the idea in his head that it was
marrying him that killed her. If you want to know what I think, I
believe she puts it there for a purpose."
"You mean--?" I was so completely at sea that I couldn't frame a
rational question.
"I mean she haunts him purposely in order to drive him out of his mind.
She was always that sort, jealous and exacting, the kind that clutches
and strangles a man, and I've often thought, though I've no head for
speculation, that we carry into the next world the traits and feelings
that have got the better of us in this one. It seems to me only common
sense to believe that we're obliged to work them off somewhere until we
are free of them. That is the way my first lady used to talk anyhow, and
I've never found anybody that could give me a more sensible idea."
"And isn't there any way to stop it? What has Mrs. Vanderbridge done?"
"Oh, she can't do anything now. It has got beyond her, though she has
had doctor after doctor, and tried everything she could think of. But,
you see, she is handicapped because she can't mention it to her husband.
He doesn't know that she knows."
"And she won't tell him?"
"She is the sort that would die first--just the opposite from the Other
One--for she leaves him free, she never clutches and strangles. It isn't
her way." For a moment she hesitated, and then added grimly--"I've
wondered if you could do anything?"
"If I could? Why, I am a perfect stranger to them all."
"That's why I've been thinking it. Now, if you could corner her some
day--the Other One--and tell her up and down to her face what you think
of her."
The idea was so ludicrous that it made me laugh in spite of my shaken
nerves. "They would fancy me out of my wits! Imagine stopping an
apparition and telling it what you think of it!"
"Then you might try talking it over with Mrs. Vanderbridge. It would
help her to know that you see her also."
But the next morning, when I went down to Mrs. Vanderbridge's room, I
found that she was too ill to see me. At noon a trained nurse came on
the case, and for a week we took our meals together in the morning-room
upstairs. She appeared competent enough, but I am sure that she didn't
so much as suspect that there was anything wrong in the house except the
influenza which had attacked Mrs. Vanderbridge the night of the opera.
Never once during that week did I catch a glimpse of the Other One,
though I felt her presence whenever I left my room and passed through
the hall below. I knew all the time as well as if I had seen her that
she was hidden there, watching, watching--
At the end of the week Mrs. Vanderbridge sent for me to write some
letters, and when I went into her room, I found her lying on the couch
with a tea table in front of her. She asked me to make the tea because
she was still so weak, and I saw that she looked flushed and feverish,
and that her eyes were unnaturally large and bright. I hoped she
wouldn't talk to me, because people in that state are apt to talk too
much and then to blame the listener; but I had hardly taken my seat at
the tea table before she said in a hoarse voice--the cold had settled on
her chest:
"Miss Wrenn, I have wanted to ask you ever since the other evening--did
you--did you see anything unusual at dinner? From your face when you
came out I thought--I thought--"