THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss Dunross made
an attempt to rouse me.
"Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at Lerwick?"
she asked.
"It is no easy matter," I replied, "to decide on leaving my friends in
this house."
Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she answered me.
"Think of your mother," she said. "The first duty you owe is your
duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her--your mother is
suffering."
"Suffering?" I repeated. "Her letters say nothing--"
"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," Miss Dunross
interposed. "I see the unwritten and unconscious confession of anxiety
in every line that she writes to you. You know, as well as I do, that
there is cause for her anxiety. Make her happy by telling her that you
sail for home with your friends. Make her happier still by telling her
that you grieve no more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write
it, in your name and in those words?"
I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those terms,
or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy love-story of my
manhood had never been a forbidden subject between us on former
occasions. Why did I feel as if it had become a forbidden subject now?
Why did I evade giving her a direct reply?
"We have plenty of time before us," I said. "I want to speak to you
about yourself."
She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if
to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I persisted,
nevertheless, in returning to it.
"If I must go back," I went on, "I may venture to say to you at parting
what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe that you are
an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told you, has been the
education of a medical man. I am well acquainted with some of the
greatest living physicians, in Edinburgh as well as in London. Will you
allow me to describe your malady (as I understand it) to men who are
accustomed to treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you
let me write and tell you the result?"
I waited for her reply. Neither by word nor sign did she encourage the
idea of any future communication with her. I ventured to suggest another
motive which might induce her to receive a letter from me.
"In any case, I may find it necessary to write to you," I went on. "You
firmly believe that I and my little Mary are destined to meet again. If
your anticipations are realized, you will expect me to tell you of it,
surely?"
Once more I waited. She spoke--but it was not to reply: it was only to
change the subject.
"The time is passing," was all she said. "We have not begun your letter
to your mother yet."
It would have been cruel to contend with her any longer. Her voice
warned me that she was suffering. The faint gleam of light through
the parted curtains was fading fast. It was time, indeed, to write the
letter. I could find other opportunities of speaking to her before I
left the house.
"I am ready," I answered. "Let us begin."
The first sentence was easily dictated to my patient secretary. I
informed my mother that my sprained wrist was nearly restored to use,
and that nothing prevented my leaving Shetland when the lighthouse
commissioner was ready to return. This was all that it was necessary
to say on the subject of my health; the disaster of my re-opened wound
having been, for obvious reasons, concealed from my mother's knowledge.
Miss Dunross silently wrote the opening lines of the letter, and waited
for the words that were to follow.
In my next sentence, I announced the date at which the vessel was to
sail on the return voyage; and I mentioned the period at which my mother
might expect to see me, weather permitting. Those words, also, Miss
Dunross wrote--and waited again. I set myself to consider what I should
say next. To my surprise and alarm, I found it impossible to fix my mind
on the subject. My thoughts wandered away, in the strangest manner, from
my letter to Mrs. Van Brandt. I was ashamed of myself; I was angry
with myself--I resolved, no matter what I said, that I would positively
finish the letter. No! try as I might, the utmost effort of my will
availed me nothing. Mrs. Van Brandt's words at our last interview were
murmuring in my ears--not a word of my own would come to me!
Miss Dunross laid down her pen, and slowly turned her head to look at
me.
"Surely you have something more to add to your letter?" she said.
"Certainly," I answered. "I don't know what is the matter with me. The
effort of dictating seems to be beyond my power this evening."
"Can I help you?" she asked.
I gladly accepted the suggestion. "There are many things," I said,
"which my mother would be glad to hear, if I were not too stupid to
think of them. I am sure I may trust your sympathy to think of them for
me."
That rash answer offered Miss Dunross the opportunity of returning
to the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt. She seized the opportunity with
a woman's persistent resolution when she has her end in view, and is
determined to reach it at all hazards.
"You have not told your mother yet," she said, "that your infatuation
for Mrs. Van Brandt is at an end. Will you put it in your own words? Or
shall I write it for you, imitating your language as well as I can?"
In the state of my mind at that moment, her perseverance conquered me. I
thought to myself indolently, "If I say No, she will only return to the
subject again, and she will end (after all I owe to her kindness)
in making me say Yes." Before I could answer her she had realized my
anticipations. She returned to the subject; and she made me say Yes.
"What does your silence mean?" she said. "Do you ask me to help you, and
do you refuse to accept the first suggestion I offer?"
"Take up your pen," I rejoined. "It shall be as you wish."
"Will you dictate the words?"
"I will try."
I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of Mrs. Van Brandt
vividly present to my mind, I arranged the first words of the sentence
which was to tell my mother that my "infatuation" was at an end!
"You will be glad to hear," I began, "that time and change are doing
their good work."
Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation of the next
sentence. The light faded and faded; the room grew darker and darker. I
went on.
"I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear mother, on the
subject of Mrs. Van Brandt."
In the deep silence I could hear the pen of my secretary traveling
steadily over the paper while it wrote those words.
"Have you written?" I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased.
"I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet tones.
I went on again with my letter.
"The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I am
resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt."
As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from Miss
Dunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in the
deepening darkness, that her head had fallen on the back of the chair.
My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to her. I had barely got
to my feet, when some indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant.
Supporting myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable
of advancing a step. The effort to speak was the one effort that I could
make.
"Are you ill?" I asked.
She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without raising
her head.
"I am frightened," she said.
"What has frightened you?"
I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answering me, she
whispered to herself: "What am I to say to him?"
"Tell me what has frightened you?" I repeated. "You know you may trust
me with the truth."
She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange words:
"Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing for
you."
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you."
"Can you see it?"
"No."
"Can you feel it?"
"Yes!"
"What is it like?"
"Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter."
"Has the window come open?"
"The window is close shut."
"And the door?"
"The door is shut also--as well as I can see. Make sure of it for
yourself. Where are you? What are you doing?"
I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last words, I was
conscious of a change in that part of the room.
In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light shining;
not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and starry radiance, a
pale, unearthly light. While I watched it, the starry radiance quivered
as if some breath of air had stirred it. When it was still again, there
dawned on me through the unearthly luster the figure of a woman. By fine
and slow gradations, it became more and more distinct. I knew the noble
figure; I knew the sad and tender smile. For the second time I stood in
the presence of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt.
She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which she
had worn on the memorable evening when we met on the bridge--in the
dress in which she had first appeared to me, by the waterfall in
Scotland. The starry light shone round her like a halo. She looked at
me with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she had looked when I saw
the apparition of her in the summer-house. She lifted her hand--not
beckoning me to approach her, as before, but gently signing to me to
remain where I stood.
I waited--feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I looked at
her.
She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss Dunross
sat; winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at the back. By
the light of the pale halo that encircled the ghostly Presence, and
moved with it, I could see the dark figure of the living woman seated
immovable in the chair. The writing-case was on her lap, with the letter
and the pen lying on it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiled
head was now bent forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stone
in the act of trying to rise from her seat.
A moment passed--and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the
living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested the
writing-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen and wrote
on the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back on the lap of the
living woman. Still standing behind the chair, it turned toward me. It
looked at me once more. And now it beckoned--beckoned to me to approach.
Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I first
saw her in the summer-house--drawn nearer and nearer by an irresistible
power--I approached and stopped within a few paces of her. She advanced
and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt those strangely mingled
sensations of rapture and awe, which had once before filled me when I
was conscious, spiritually, of her touch. Again she spoke, in the low,
melodious tones which I recalled so well. Again she said the words:
"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale
light in which she stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight
glimmering between the curtains--and I saw no more. She had spoken. She
had gone.
I was near Miss Dunross--near enough, when I put out my hand, to touch
her.
She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a
dreadful dream.
"Speak to me!" she whispered. "Let me know that it is _you_ who touched
me."
I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her.
"Have you seen anything in the room?"
She answered. "I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen
nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap."
"Did you see the hand that lifted it?"
"No."
"Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?"
"No."
"Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?"
"I saw it resting on my shoulder."
"Did you see writing on the letter, which was not _your_ writing?"
"I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am
sitting."
"Did it move?"
"It moved across the paper."
"As a pen moves in writing?"
"Yes. As a pen moves in writing."
"May I take the letter?"
She handed it to me.
"May I light a candle?"
She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in silence.
I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the writing.
There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before on the
blank space in the sketch-book--there were the written words which the
ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged once more in two lines, as
I copy them here:
At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.