AN AWFUL APPARITION.
When Faynie awoke to consciousness she found the housekeeper bending
over her. Hours had passed and Claire had long since retired to her
room.
Faynie opened her eyes slowly, in a half-dazed manner, but as she did so
memory returned to her with startling force; but she bravely restrained
the cry that rose to her lips.
Claire had called her lover "Lester!" She wondered that the sound of
that name had: not stricken her head.
Could Claire's lover be--Ah! she dared not even imagine such a horrible
possibility. Then she laughed aloud, thinking how foolish she had been
to be so needlessly alarmed.
The false lover who had wooed and won her so cruelly was not the only
man in the world who bore the fateful name of Lester.
"Ah, you are better, my dear," exclaimed the old housekeeper in great
relief. "Your swoon lasted so long that I was greatly alarmed; What
caused you to faint, my dear child?"
Faynie murmured some reply which she could not quite catch, for the
housekeeper was old and very deaf.
"Take this and go to sleep," she said, holding a soothing, quieting
draught to the girl's white, hot, parched lips. "You will awaken as well
as ever to-morrow."
Faynie did as she was requested, closing her eyes. She was glad when the
kindly old face was turned away and she was left alone--not to sleep,
but to think.
Of course it could not be Lester Armstrong who was Claire's suitor, for
he was poor, and her haughty stepmother would never encourage the suit
of a man who did not have wealth at his command.
If Faynie had but read the papers she would have known what was
transpiring, but, alas! she did not and was utterly unaware of the
strange turn of fortune's wheel which had occurred in the life of the
young assistant cashier to whom she had given the wealth of her love,
when he was poor.
Lying there, going over every detail of, the past, which seemed now but
the idle vagaries of a fleeting dream, she hardly knew, Heaven help her,
whether she still loved--or hated with all the strength of her
nature--Lester Armstrong.
Her heart would fill with yearning tenderness almost unbearable when she
looked back at the early days of that brief, sweet courtship.
How strong, noble, true and brave he had seemed--how kind of heart!
She had seen him pick up a little birdling that had fallen from its
nest, lying with a bruised wing in the dust of the roadside, and restore
it to the mother bird to be nursed back to health and life, and go out
of his way to rescue a butterfly that had fallen in the millpond.
It seemed like the distorted imagination of some diseased brain to bring
herself to the realization that this same gentle hand that had rescued
the robin and the butterfly had struck her down to death--that the kind,
earnest voice that had been wont to whisper nothing but words of
devotion and eternal love should fling out the vilest and bitterest of
oaths at her, because she was not the heiress he had taken her to be.
And without one tear, one bitter regret, he had consigned her to that
lonely grave and gone back to the life which he had declared he could
never live without her.
Where was he now? she wondered vaguely; then she laughed a low, bitter
laugh, sadder than any tears.
He had missed the fortune he had hoped for and was back again in the
office of Marsh & Co.
Then the thought came to her again with crushing, alarming force--would
he not (believing her dead and himself free to woo and wed again) seek
out some other heiress, since that was his design? Many young girls came
to the assistant cashier's window just as she had done; he would select
the richest and marry her.
The very thought seemed to stab her to the heart with a keen, subtle
pain which she could neither understand nor clearly define, even to
herself.
"Heaven pity her in the hour when she finds that she has been
deceived--that he married her for gold, not love," she sobbed, covering
her face with her little trembling hands.
She prayed to Heaven silently that Claire's lover, whoever he might be,
was marrying her for love, and for love alone.
So restless was she that, despite the quieting draught which the
housekeeper had induced her to swallow, she could not sleep.
But one thing remained for her to do, and that was to get up and dress
and go down to her father's library and read herself into forgetfulness
until day dawned.
Faynie acted upon the impulse, noting as she stepped from her room into
the corridor that the clock on her mantel chimed the hour of two.
She had proceeded scarcely half a dozen steps ere she became aware that
she was not alone in the corridor.
She stopped short.
The time was when Faynie would have shrieked aloud or swooned from
terror; but she had gone through so many thrilling scenes during the
last few weeks of her eventful young life that fear within her breast
had quite died out.
Was it only her wild, fanciful imagination, or did she hear the sound of
low breathing? Faynie stood quite still, leaning behind a marble Flora,
and listened.
Yes, the sound was audible enough now. There was somebody in the
corridor creeping toward the spot where she stood, with swift but
noiseless feet.
Nearer, nearer the footsteps crept, the soft, low-bated breathing
sounding closer with every step.
With a presence of mind which few young girls possessed, Faynie
suddenly stepped forward and turned on the gas jet from an electric
button, full head.
The sight which met her gaze fairly rooted her to the spot.
For one brief instant of time it seemed to Faynie as though her breath
was leaving her body.
She stood paralyzed, unable to stir hand or foot, if her very life had
depended upon it.
Outside the wind blew dismally; the shutters creaked to and fro on their
hinges; the leafless branches of the trees tapped their ghostly fingers
against the panes.
Faynie tried to speak--to cry out--but her tongue seemed to cleave to
the roof of her mouth, powerless. Her hands fell to her side a dead
weight, her eyes fairly bulging from their sockets.
It almost seemed to the girl that she was passing through the awful
transition of death.
The blood in her veins was turning to ice, and the heart in her bosom to
marble.
In an upper room, afar off, she heard one of the servants coughing
protractedly in her sleep.
Oh, God! if she could but burst the icy bonds that bound her hand and
foot and cry out--bring the household about her. Her lips opened, but no
sound came from them.
The very breath in her body seemed dying out with each faint gasp that
broke over the white, mute lips.
Outside the night winds grew wilder and fiercer. A gust of hail battered
against the window panes and rattled down the wide-throated chimneys.
Then suddenly; all was still again!
Oh, pitiful heavens! how hard Faynie tried to break the awful bonds that
held her there, still, silent, motionless, unable to move or utter any
sound, staring in horror words cannot picture at the sight that met her
strained gaze.
It had only been an instant of time since the bright blaze of the gas
had illuminated the darkened corridor, yet it seemed to Faynie, standing
there, white and cold as an image carved in marble, that long years had
passed.