"Did I dream the whole thing?" said Bertram Chesleigh to himself,
"or was it, indeed, only a ghost that I kissed on the border of the
lake? Do ghosts have warm, living flesh and blood, and balmy lips, and
blushes that come and go, and delicious little tempers, and the power
to thrill one's nerves with quivering darts of fire? Have I lost my
heart to a phantom?"
He might well ask himself these questions. A day and night had gone
since the Glenalvans had their little party, and so far he had been
unable to learn anything at all concerning the beautiful girl whom all
but himself believed to have been the ghost of the dead Erma Glenalvan.
As he had promised to keep little Golden's secret inviolate, he could
of course make no opening inquiries, but his little, careless, artful
speeches, and innocent inquiries all failed of effect.
He could learn nothing of the maid whose beauty and grace had literally
carried his heart by storm. It seemed quite plain that she did not live
in the house.
It was equally certain that she did not reside in the neighborhood,
for his friend, young Fred Glenalvan, had often assured him that his
father's family were the only living descendants of the once numerous
race.
Mr. Chesleigh asked himself if there was indeed a mystery, or if he had
been fooled by an elfish spirit from the world of shadows.
His heart and his reason answered in the negative. It was a human
being, warm, breathing, living, whom he had clasped and kissed that
night. His veins tingled with electric fire at the remembrance.
Alone in his room the second night after his rencontre with the ghost,
Bertram Chesleigh walked up and down restlessly, half mad with himself
that he should dwell so persistently on that one thought, yet finding
it so dangerously sweet he would not willingly have forgotten it.
It seemed to him that he had never really lived till now, when this
romantic passion for the beautiful unknown fired his heart.
Elinor and Clare had been very much frightened at the appearance of the
family ghost. They talked about it in low, awe-struck whispers.
When Bertram Chesleigh expressed a desire to visit the haunted suite
of rooms they expressed themselves as horrified, and declared that the
rooms of the hapless Erma had been walled up long years before, and
that all the rooms of the western wing were in such a ruinous condition
that it was exceedingly dangerous to venture there at all.
They declared that their father had engaged workmen to pull down the
western wing on account of its precarious condition.
But singularly enough Bertram Chesleigh's thoughts were running on the
haunted rooms almost continuously to-night. Everything connected with
the Glenalvan ghost had a deep interest for him.
Some impulse impelled him to visit the western wing.
He knew that the wide hall on which his room door opened had a corridor
leading from it into the ruined western wing of the hall.
Some impulse stronger than his will, some "spirit in his feet,"
tempted him forth under cover of the silence and the night to explore
the dangerous region in the vague hope of finding some trace of the
mysterious ghost of last night.
To have met her again he would have dared even more threatening dangers
than the settling timbers and falling roof which Fred, and Clare and
Elinor were unanimous in declaring menaced everyone who entered the
decaying portion of the hall.
Softly shod in his velvet slippers, he opened the door and peered out
into the long hall.
It was lighted by long windows at either end, through which the
moonlight poured a flood of white radiance. Putting a convenient box of
matches into the pocket of his dressing-gown, he sallied boldly forth.
Whether ghost or human, he longed to encounter the beautiful girl he
loved again.
He entered the long corridor and walked along softly, guided by the
moonlight that entered through the windows and lay in fantastic shadows
upon the floor.
He found that the building was in a ruinous condition indeed. The rooms
into which he looked were dismantled and bare, the papering hung in
ragged, fantastic strips from the walls; huge rats scampered over the
floor, frightened night-birds flapped against the windows with wild,
unearthly noises. Surely, the place was well-fitted to be the abode of
ghosts and shadows, it was so weird and uncanny.
But Bertram Chesleigh held on his way undauntedly. It seemed to him
that he had explored every room on that upper floor, when suddenly he
discovered a little passage down which he turned and found himself in
front of a closed door.
The majority of the doors had stood open, swinging carelessly on their
hinges.
The midnight explorer did not know why his heart beat so strangely when
he stood before this closed one.
He turned the handle noiselessly, and entered, carefully closing the
door behind him.
In the large and lofty apartment, where he now found himself, a dim and
shaded night-lamp was burning, thick, dark curtains shaded the windows,
a large rug covered the center of the floor, a low, white cottage-bed
stood in the furthest corner, draped in neat and spotless white.
Then the midnight explorer started, and with difficulty repressed the
cry that rose to his lips.
For the soft, white counterpane thrown over the bed, outlined the
curves of an exquisite, girlish form.
On the white, ruffled pillow nestled a sleeping face as lovely as a
budding rose.
The round, white arms were thrown carelessly up above her head, the
wealth of curling, golden hair, strayed in rich confusion over the
pillow; the golden-brown lashes lay softly on the rosy, dimpled cheeks;
the lips were smiling as if some happy dream stirred the white breast
that rose and fell so softly over the innocent heart.
"Ghost or human?" Bertram Chesleigh asked himself, as he gazed in
astonishment and ecstacy at the beautiful, unconscious sleeper.
He came nearer with noiseless footsteps and bated breath to the
bedside. He bent so near that he could hear the soft, sweet breath that
fluttered over the parted lips.
"It is she," he said to himself, with mingled rapture and amaze.
Then, in the next breath, he murmured:
"I must beat a quiet retreat. How frightened and angry she would be,
were she to awake and find me here!"
He was one of the purest and most honorable minded men in the world.
He turned to go, but could not tear his fascinated eyes from that
beautiful, child-like, sleeping face.
His splendid black eyes lingered on its innocent beauty in passionate
admiration.
"If I might only touch that little hand that lies so near me on the
pillow, it would cool the thirst of my heart," he said wistfully to
himself, while his heart beat fast with joy that he had found her
again, this lovely creature of whom he had dreamed night and day for
twenty-four hours.
He looked at the sweetly-smiling, parted lips, and his pulses thrilled
at the remembrance of the tender caress he had pressed upon them such a
short while before.
Carried away by the force of as pure and mad a passion as ever thrilled
the heart of man, the enraptured lover bent his head and pressed a kiss
as soft and light as the fall of a rose-leaf on the white hand that lay
so temptingly near him.
He meant to go then, but as he lifted his head, blushing with shame
at the temptation that had prompted him to that wrongful and stolen
caress, a sharp indignant voice fell on his ears with the suddenness of
a thunder-clap.
"Oh, you black-hearted wilyun--you wicked betrayer of innercence! Get
out o' this afore I kill you with my own hands, you han'some debbil!"
Bertram Chesleigh turned and saw a ludicrous, yet startling sight
framed in the open doorway of an inner chamber which in his agitation,
he had not noticed before.
Old Black Dinah, who was the color of ebony and very tall and lean,
stood before him, clad in a short night-gown of gay, striped cotton
from which her slim legs and arms stuck out like bean-poles.
Her stubbly, gray wool seemed to stand erect on her head with horror,
and her brandished arms, snapping black eyes, and furious face, made up
a startling picture of wrath and horror, strangely combined with the
ludicrous.
"You black-hearted wilyun!" old Dinah repeated, advancing angrily upon
her dismayed foe, "get out o' de room o' my innercent lamb afore she
wakes and finds you here, you wolf!"
"I beg your pardon--I stumbled into this room by the merest accident,"
Chesleigh was beginning to say, when, startled by Dinah's loud and
angry tones, little Golden awoke, and flashed the light of her wide
blue eyes upon their excited faces.
She uttered a cry of fear and terror when she saw the tall, manly form
standing in the room.
Old Dinah ran to her instantly, and she hid her frightened face on the
shoulder of the old black woman.
"Black mammy, what does all this mean?" cried the girl, nervously.
Dinah gave a prolonged and lugubrious groan, and rolled up the whites
of her eyes in reply. The intruder saw that it was imperative that he
should stay long enough to explain matters to the alarmed girl.
He said to himself that no one had ever been placed in such a strange
and embarrassing position before.
Every instinct of delicacy and respect for the young girl prompted
him to retire at once; yet he could not bear to go and leave a wrong
impression on the mind of the beautiful girl whom he admired so much.
He retreated to the door, and, standing there, said, anxiously and
respectfully:
"I entreat you to believe, Miss Glenalvan, that I entered here with no
wrongful motive. Led by a fit of curiosity, I was exploring the ruined
wing of the hall, and I entered without a dream of finding it occupied
by any living being. I had been led to believe that these rooms were
totally unoccupied, and were even unsafe to enter. Will you accept my
apology?"
Little Golden's head was still hidden against Dinah's shoulder, and the
old woman broke out sharply and quickly:
"Honey, chile, don't you go for to 'cept dat wilyun's 'pology! Ef he
done really cum in dis room by accident, he would agone out ag'in when
he found dat a young lady occupied de room. But no; de first sight my
ole brack eyes saw when I jumped off my pallet and come to de door was
dat strange man a-kissin' you, my precious lamb."
Golden began to sob, and Mr. Chesleigh mentally anathematized the old
woman's long tongue that had thus betrayed the secret he had intended
to keep so carefully.
His face grew scarlet as he hastened to say:
"I kissed your hand, Miss Glenalvan, and I entreat your pardon for
yielding to that overmastering temptation. Can you forgive me?"
But Golden was still weeping bitterly, and old Dinah, in her fear and
indignation for her darling, pointed quickly to the door.
"Go," she said. "Don't you see how you frighten the chile by staying?"
There seemed nothing to be gained by staying. The old woman was utterly
unreasonable, and Golden was so agitated she could not speak.
The embarrassed intruder silently withdrew to his own apartment, where
he spent the night brooding over the strange discovery he had made and
the unpleasant position in which he had placed himself.