Was it a spectre?
For days I could not answer this question. I am no believer in spiritual
manifestations, yet----But let me tell my story.
I was lodging with my wife on the first floor of a house in
Twenty-seventh Street. I had taken the apartments for three months, and
we had already lived in them two and found them sufficiently
comfortable. The back room we used as a bedroom, and as we received but
few friends, the two great leaves of old mahogany connecting the rooms,
usually stood wide open.
One morning, my wife being ill, I left her lying in bed and stepped into
the parlour preparatory to going out for breakfast. It was late--nine
o'clock probably--and I was hastening to leave, when I heard a sound
behind me--or did I merely feel a presence?--and, turning, saw a strange
and totally unknown woman coming toward me from my wife's room.
As I had just left that room, and as there was no other way of entrance
save through a door we always kept locked, I was so overpowered by my
astonishment that I never thought of speaking or moving until she had
passed me. Then I found voice, and calling out "Madam!" endeavoured to
stop her.
But the madam, if madam she was, passed on as quietly, as mechanically
even, as if I had not raised my voice, and before I could grasp the fact
that she was melting from before me flitted through the hall to the
front door and so out, leaving behind on the palm of my hand the "feel"
of her wool dress, which I had just managed to touch.
Not understanding her or myself or the strange thrill awakened by this
contact, I tore open the front door and looked out, expecting, of
course, to see her on the steps or on the sidewalk in front. But there
was no one of her appearance visible, and I came back questioning
whether I was the victim of a hallucination or just an everyday fool. To
satisfy myself on this important question I looked about for the
hallboy, with the intention of asking him if he had seen any such person
go out, but that young and inconsequent scamp was missing from his post
as usual and there was no one within sight to appeal to.
There was nothing to do but to re-enter my rooms, where my attention was
immediately arrested by the sight of my wife sitting up in bed and
surveying me with a look of unmistakable astonishment.
"Who was that woman?" she asked. "And how came she in here?"
So she had seen her too.
"What woman, Lydia? I have not let in any woman. Did you think there was
a woman in this room?"
"Not in that room," she answered hoarsely, "but in this one. I saw her
just now passing through the folding doors. Wilbur, I am frightened.
See how my hands shake. Do you think I am sick enough to imagine
things?"
I knew she was not, but I did not say so. I thought it would be better
for her to think herself under some such delusion.
"You were dozing," said I. "If you had seen a woman here you could tell
me how she looked."
"And I can," my wife broke in excitedly. "She was like the ghosts we
read of, only that her dress and the veil or drapery she wore were all
grey. Didn't you see her? You must have seen her. She went right by
you--a grey woman, all grey; a lady, Wilbur, and slightly lame. Could I
have dreamed all that?"
"You must have!" I protested, shaking the door leading directly into the
hall so she might see it was locked, and even showing her the key to it
lying in its accustomed place behind the bureau cushion. Yet I was in no
satisfied condition myself, for she had described with the greatest
accuracy the very person I had myself seen. Had we been alike the
victims of a spiritual manifestation?
This was Tuesday. On Friday my question seemed to receive an answer. I
had been downtown, as usual, and on returning found a crowd assembled in
front of my lodging-house. A woman had been run over and was being
carried into our rooms. In the glimpse I caught of her I saw that she
was middle-aged and was wrapped in a long black cloak. Later this cloak
fell off, as her hat had done long before, and I perceived that her
dress was black and decent.
She was laid on our bed and every attention paid her. But she had been
grievously injured about the head and gradually but surely sank before
our eyes. Suddenly she roused and gave a look about her. It was a
remarkable one--a look of recognition and almost of delight. Then she
raised one hand and, pointing with a significant gesture into the empty
space before her, sank back and died.
It was a sudden ending, and, anxious to see its effect upon my wife, who
was standing on the other side of the bed, I glanced her way with some
misgiving. She showed more feeling than I had anticipated. Indeed her
countenance was a study, and when, under the influence of my scrutiny,
she glanced my way, I saw that something of deeper import than this
unexpected death in our rooms lay at the bottom of her uneasy look.
What that was I was soon to know, for catching up from amid the folds of
the woman's grey-lined cloak a long grey veil which had fallen at the
bedside, she disposed it softly about the woman's face, darting me a
look full of significance.
"You remember the vision I had the morning when I was sick?" she
whispered softly in my ear.