SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all the old
love, all the old devotion owning her power once more. Whatever had
mortified or angered me at our last interview was forgiven and forgotten
now. My whole being still thrilled with the mingled awe and rapture of
beholding the Vision of her that had come to me for the second time. The
minutes passed--and I stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking
only of her spoken words, "Remember me. Come to me;" looking only at her
mystic writing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's."
The month's end was still far off; the apparition of her had shown
itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that was still in
the future. Ample time was before me for the pilgrimage to which I was
self-dedicated already--my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul's.
Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the right
understanding of the place to which they were bidden. Other men might
have wearied their memories by recalling the churches, the institutions,
the streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated to
Christian reverence by the great apostle's name, and might have
fruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first to turn
their steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was the
one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. "Saint Paul's" meant the
famous Cathedral of London. Where the shadow of the great church fell,
there, at the month's end, I should find her, or the trace of her. In
London once more, and nowhere else, I was destined to see the woman I
loved, in the living body, as certainly as I had just seen her in the
ghostly presence.
Who could interpret the mysterious sympathies that still united us, in
defiance of distance, in defiance of time? Who could predict to what end
our lives were tending in the years that were to come?
Those questions were still present to my thoughts; my eyes were still
fixed on the mysterious writing--when I became instinctively aware of
the strange silence in the room. Instantly the lost remembrance of
Miss Dunross came back to me. Stung by my own sense of self-reproach, I
turned with a start, and looked toward her chair by the window.
The chair was empty. I was alone in the room.
Why had she left me secretly, without a word of farewell? Because she
was suffering, in mind or body? Or because she resented, naturally
resented, my neglect of her?
The bare suspicion that I had given her pain was intolerable to me. I
rang my bell, to make inquiries.
The bell was answered, not, as usual, by the silent servant Peter, but
by a woman of middle age, very quietly and neatly dressed, whom I had
once or twice met on the way to and from my room, and of whose exact
position in the house I was still ignorant.
"Do you wish to see Peter?" she asked.
"No. I wish to know where Miss Dunross is."
"Miss Dunross is in her room. She has sent me with this letter."
I took the letter, feeling some surprise and uneasiness. It was the
first time Miss Dunross had communicated with me in that formal way. I
tried to gain further information by questioning her messenger.
"Are you Miss Dunross's maid?" I asked.
"I have served Miss Dunross for many years," was the answer, spoken very
ungraciously.
"Do you think she would receive me if I sent you with a message to her?"
"I can't say, sir. The letter may tell you. You will do well to read the
letter."
We looked at each other. The woman's preconceived impression of me
was evidently an unfavorable one. Had I indeed pained or offended Miss
Dunross? And had the servant--perhaps the faithful servant who loved
her--discovered and resented it? The woman frowned as she looked at me.
It would be a mere waste of words to persist in questioning her. I let
her go.
Left by myself again, I read the letter. It began, without any form of
address, in these lines:
"I write, instead of speaking to you, because my self-control has
already been severely tried, and I am not strong enough to bear more.
For my father's sake--not for my own--I must take all the care I can of
the little health that I have left.
"Putting together what you have told me of the visionary creature whom
you saw in the summer-house in Scotland, and what you said when you
questioned me in your room a little while since, I cannot fail to infer
that the same vision has shown itself to you, for the second time. The
fear that I felt, the strange things that I saw (or thought I saw), may
have been imperfect reflections in my mind of what was passing in yours.
I do not stop to inquire whether we are both the victims of a delusion,
or whether we are the chosen recipients of a supernatural communication.
The result, in either case, is enough for me. You are once more under
the influence of Mrs. Van Brandt. I will not trust myself to tell you
of the anxieties and forebodings by which I am oppressed: I will only
acknowledge that my one hope for you is in your speedy reunion with the
worthier object of your constancy and devotion. I still believe, and I
am consoled in believing, that you and your first love will meet again.
"Having written so far, I leave the subject--not to return to it, except
in my own thoughts.
"The necessary preparations for your departure to-morrow are all made.
Nothing remains but to wish you a safe and pleasant journey home. Do
not, I entreat you, think me insensible of what I owe to you, if I say
my farewell words here.
"The little services which you have allowed me to render you have
brightened the closing days of my life. You have left me a treasury
of happy memories which I shall hoard, when you are gone, with miserly
care. Are you willing to add new claims to my grateful remembrance? I
ask it of you, as a last favor--do not attempt to see me again! Do not
expect me to take a personal leave of you! The saddest of all words
is 'Good-by': I have fortitude enough to write it, and no more. God
preserve and prosper you--farewell!
"One more request. I beg that you will not forget what you promised me,
when I told you my foolish fancy about the green flag. Wherever you go,
let Mary's keepsake go with you. No written answer is necessary--I would
rather not receive it. Look up, when you leave the house to-morrow, at
the center window over the doorway--that will be answer enough."
To say that these melancholy lines brought the tears into my eyes is
only to acknowledge that I had sympathies which could be touched. When I
had in some degree recovered my composure, the impulse which urged me to
write to Miss Dunross was too strong to be resisted. I did not trouble
her with a long letter; I only entreated her to reconsider her decision
with all the art of persuasion which I could summon to help me. The
answer was brought back by the servant who waited on Miss Dunross, in
four resolute words: "It can not be." This time the woman spoke out
before she left me. "If you have any regard for my mistress," she said
sternly, "don't make her write to you again." She looked at me with a
last lowering frown, and left the room.
It is needless to say that the faithful servant's words only increased
my anxiety to see Miss Dunross once more before we parted--perhaps
forever. My one last hope of success in attaining this object lay in
approaching her indirectly through the intercession of her father.
I sent Peter to inquire if I might be permitted to pay my respects to
his master that evening. My messenger returned with an answer that was a
new disappointment to me. Mr. Dunross begged that I would excuse him,
if he deferred the proposed interview until the next morning. The next
morning was the morning of my departure. Did the message mean that he
had no wish to see me again until the time had come to take leave of
him? I inquired of Peter whether his master was particularly occupied
that evening. He was unable to tell me. "The Master of Books" was not in
his study, as usual. When he sent his message to me, he was sitting by
the sofa in his daughter's room.
Having answered in those terms, the man left me by myself until the next
morning. I do not wish my bitterest enemy a sadder time in his life
than the time I passed during the last night of my residence under Mr.
Dunross's roof.
After walking to and fro in the room until I was weary, I thought of
trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts that oppressed it by
reading. The one candle which I had lighted failed to sufficiently
illuminate the room. Advancing to the mantel-piece to light the second
candle which stood there, I noticed the unfinished letter to my mother
lying where I had placed it, when Miss Dunross's servant first presented
herself before me. Having lighted the second candle, I took up the
letter to put it away among my other papers. Doing this (while my
thoughts were still dwelling on Miss Dunross), I mechanically looked at
the letter again--and instantly discovered a change in it.
The written characters traced by the hand of the apparition had
vanished! Below the last lines written by Miss Dunross nothing met my
eyes now but the blank white paper!
My first impulse was to look at my watch.
When the ghostly presence had written in my sketch-book, the characters
had disappeared after an interval of three hours. On this occasion, as
nearly as I could calculate, the writing had vanished in one hour only.
Reverting to the conversation which I had held with Mrs. Van Brandt when
we met at Saint Anthony's Well, and to the discoveries which followed at
a later period of my life, I can only repeat that she had again been the
subject of a trance or dream, when the apparition of her showed itself
to me for the second time. As before, she had freely trusted me and
freely appealed to me to help her, in the dreaming state, when her
spirit was free to recognize my spirit. When she had come to herself,
after an interval of an hour, she had again felt ashamed of the familiar
manner in which she had communicated with me in the trance--had again
unconsciously counteracted by her waking-will the influence of her
sleeping-will; and had thus caused the writing once more to disappear,
in an hour from the moment when the pen had traced (or seemed to trace)
it.
This is still the one explanation that I can offer. At the time when the
incident happened, I was far from being fully admitted to the confidence
of Mrs. Van Brandt; and I was necessarily incapable of arriving at
any solution of the mystery, right or wrong. I could only put away the
letter, doubting vaguely whether my own senses had not deceived me.
After the distressing thoughts which Miss Dunross's letter had roused in
my mind, I was in no humor to employ my ingenuity in finding a clew to
the mystery of the vanished writing. My nerves were irritated; I felt a
sense of angry discontent with myself and with others. "Go where I may"
(I thought impatiently), "the disturbing influence of women seems to be
the only influence that I am fated to feel." As I still paced backward
and forward in my room--it was useless to think now of fixing my
attention on a book--I fancied I understood the motives which made men
as young as I was retire to end their lives in a monastery. I drew aside
the window curtains, and looked out. The only prospect that met my view
was the black gulf of darkness in which the lake lay hidden. I could
see nothing; I could do nothing; I could think of nothing. The one
alternative before me was that of trying to sleep. My medical knowledge
told me plainly that natural sleep was, in my nervous condition, one
of the unattainable luxuries of life for that night. The medicine-chest
which Mr. Dunross had placed at my disposal remained in the room. I
mixed for myself a strong sleeping draught, and sullenly took refuge
from my troubles in bed.
It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they not only
act in a totally different manner on different constitutions, but that
they are not even to be depended on to act always in the same manner on
the same person. I had taken care to extinguish the candles before I got
into my bed. Under ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in
the darkness for half an hour, the draught that I had taken would
have sent me to sleep. In the present state of my nerves the draught
stupefied me, and did no more.
Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, in the
semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously characteristic
of the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night wore on, such a sense of
heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was literally impossible for me
to open them--such a masterful languor possessed all my muscles that I
could no more move on my pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet,
in this somnolent condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of
pleasant thought. My sense of hearing was so acute that it caught the
faintest sounds made by the passage of the night-breeze through the
rushes of the lake. Inside my bed-chamber, I was even more keenly
sensible of those weird night-noises in the heavy furniture of a room,
of those sudden settlements of extinct coals in the grate, so familiar
to bad sleepers, so startling to overwrought nerves! It is not a
scientifically correct statement, but it exactly describes my condition,
that night, to say that one half of me was asleep and the other half
awake.
How many hours of the night had passed, when my irritable sense of
hearing became aware of a new sound in the room, I cannot tell. I can
only relate that I found myself on a sudden listening intently, with
fast-closed eyes. The sound that disturbed me was the faintest sound
imaginable, as of something soft and light traveling slowly over the
surface of the carpet, and brushing it just loud enough to be heard.
Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my bed--and then
suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was close by me.
I still lay immovable, with closed eyes; drowsily waiting for the next
sound that might reach my ears; drowsily content with the silence, if
the silence continued. My thoughts (if thoughts they could be called)
were drifting back again into their former course, when I became
suddenly conscious of soft breathing just above me. The next moment I
felt a touch on my forehead--light, soft, tremulous, like the touch of
lips that had kissed me. There was a momentary pause. Then a low sigh
trembled through the silence. Then I heard again the still, small sound
of something brushing its way over the carpet; traveling this time
_from_ my bed, and moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost
in the silence of the night.
Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily wonder what
had happened, and I could do no more. Had living lips really touched me?
Was the sound that I had heard really the sound of a sigh? Or was it all
delusion, beginning and ending in a dream? The time passed without my
deciding, or caring to decide, those questions. Minute by minute, the
composing influence of the draught began at last to strengthen its
hold on my brain. A cloud seemed to pass softly over my last waking
impressions. One after another, the ties broke gently that held me to
conscious life. I drifted peacefully into perfect sleep.
Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use of my memory,
my first clear recollection was the recollection of the soft breathing
which I had felt above me--then of the touch on my forehead, and of
the sigh which I had heard after it. Was it possible that some one had
entered my room in the night? It was quite possible. I had not locked
the door--I had never been in the habit of locking the door during my
residence under Mr. Dunross's roof.
After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room.
Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I reached the
door. Though I had not locked it overnight, I had certainly satisfied
myself that it was closed before I went to bed. It was now ajar. Had
it opened again, through being imperfectly shut? or had a person, after
entering and leaving my room, forgotten to close it?
Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these probabilities,
I noticed a small black object on the carpet, lying just under the key,
on the inner side of the door. I picked the thing up, and found that it
was a torn morsel of black lace.
The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long black veil,
hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of Miss Dunross to wear.
Was it _her_ dress, then, that I had heard softly traveling over the
carpet; _her_ kiss that had touched my forehead; _her_ sigh that had
trembled through the silence? Had the ill-fated and noble creature taken
her last leave of me in the dead of night, trusting the preservation of
her secret to the deceitful appearances which persuaded her that I was
asleep? I looked again at the fragment of black lace. Her long veil
might easily have been caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she
passed rapidly through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly and
reverently I laid the morsel of lace among the treasured memorials which
I had brought with me from home. To the end of her life, I vowed it, she
should be left undisturbed in the belief that her secret was safe in her
own breast! Ardently as I still longed to take her hand at parting, I
now resolved to make no further effort to see her. I might not be master
of my own emotions; something in my face or in my manner might betray me
to her quick and delicate perception. Knowing what I now knew, the last
sacrifice I could make to her would be to obey her wishes. I made the
sacrifice.
In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were at the door, and
that the Master was waiting for me in the outer hall.
I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without looking at me. His
faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while we were together, were not
once raised from the ground.
"God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely home," he
said. "I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accompany you on the first
few miles of your journey. There are reasons which oblige me to remain
with my daughter in the house."
He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous; but there was
something in his manner which, for the first time in my experience,
seemed designedly to keep me at a distance from him. Knowing the
intimate sympathy, the perfect confidence, which existed between the
father and daughter, a doubt crossed my mind whether the secret of the
past night was entirely a secret to Mr. Dunross. His next words set that
doubt at rest, and showed me the truth.
In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to express to him
(and through him to Miss Dunross) my sincere sense of gratitude for the
kindness which I had received under his roof. He stopped me, politely
and resolutely, speaking with that quaintly precise choice of language
which I had remarked as characteristic of him at our first interview.
"It is in your power, sir," he said, "to return any obligation which you
may think you have incurred on leaving my house. If you will be pleased
to consider your residence here as an unimportant episode in your life,
which ends--_absolutely_ ends--with your departure, you will more than
repay any kindness that you may have received as my guest. In saying
this, I speak under a sense of duty which does entire justice to you as
a gentleman and a man of honor. In return, I can only trust to you
not to misjudge my motives, if I abstain from explaining myself any
further."
A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a certain proud
resignation, for my reply. I respected her secret, respected it more
resolutely than ever, before her father.
"After all that I owe to you, sir," I answered, "your wishes are my
commands." Saying that, and saying no more, I bowed to him with marked
respect, and left the house.
Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the center window, as she
had bidden me. It was open; but dark curtains, jealously closed, kept
out the light from the room within. At the sound of the pony's hoofs on
the rough island road, as the animal moved, the curtains were parted
for a few inches only. Through the gap in the dark draperies a wan white
hand appeared; waved tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from
my view. The curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The
dreary wind sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the
lake. The ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was kept
for the passage of animals to and from the island. With slow, regular
strokes the men rowed us to the mainland and took their leave. I looked
back at the distant house. I thought of her in the dark room, waiting
patiently for death. Burning tears blinded me. The guide took my bridle
in his hand: "You're not well, sir," he said; "I will lead the pony."
When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had descended in the
interval from the higher ground to the lower. The house and the lake had
disappeared, to be seen no more.