THE PALL OF DEATH.
“Seeing is believing,” pertinently runs the old saw.
Although Lelia was not inclined to be superstitious, she could not
doubt the evidence of her own senses.
When she saw the face of the dead, wild, dark, beautiful, staring in at
her through the window, all her exultation fled; her heart leaped into
her throat, her face went ashen white, her limbs trembled under her own
weight, and that startled shriek rang from her lips:
“I am haunted!”
She believed that the unburied dead in the old well had returned to
mock her in her bridal hour and cast the shadow of undying remorse over
her new-found happiness.
With the cry that rang from her tortured lips, she sank heavily in a
swoon to the floor, but no arm was outstretched to arrest her fall, for
every eye had turned to gaze at the window.
All saw, all recognized, the wild, white face framed in a cloud
of dark, curling hair, all stared in a trance of horror till it
disappeared, seemingly fading into thin air, “luminous, gemlike,
ghostlike, fading without a sound.”
Cries of wonder and horror commingled echoed through the room, and as
the face disappeared, several darted to the door.
One of these was Laurie Willoughby.
Unheeding his swooning bride, remembering nothing but a wild hope that
Gipsy Darke had returned from the dead, he rushed through the hall and
out into the moonlit summer night, running hither and thither like a
madman, beating about the dark shrubberies in a vain hope of finding
the lost girl.
But not a shade of success rewarded his frenzied efforts.
The earth might have opened and swallowed Gipsy Darke for any sign he
found of her presence.
In vain he called her name aloud in frenzied accents of love and
longing, vainly he lifted his eager face to the moonlit sky as if
adjuring Heaven for a solution of the mystery--there came no reply to
his prayers save the plaintive murmur of the wind in the pines and the
echo of his own agonized voice borne back to him on the breeze of night.
He was irresistibly forced to the conclusion that he had looked with
his mortal eyes on the beautiful shade of the hapless girl he had loved
too late.
Dejected and sorrowful he returned to the house, whither the other men
who had come out to join in his search had long preceded him, hopeless
of success.
Lelia, very ill and frightened, had been removed to her own room as
soon as she was restored to consciousness. She was calling for her
husband with every breath, begging that he be brought to her side.
When he came she wound her arms around his neck and hid her face on his
breast, sobbing in hysterical reproach:
“Oh, why did you leave me?”
It rushed over him that he had indeed acted rudely, rushing off from
his swooning bride in such mad haste.
He did not return her caresses, but he smoothed the golden hair gently
back from her brow, replying soothingly:
“You must forgive me, Lelia, I was so startled seeing that face at the
window I forgot everything else but the hope that poor Gipsy Darke
was yet alive, and just in hiding from us. I flew to capture her if I
could.”
“But you were disappointed?” she murmured, trying to keep the note of
malicious joy out of her voice.
“Yes. I could find no trace of that poor girl! She must, indeed, be
dead! It was her restless shade gazing in upon us,” Laurie Willoughby
answered, in a tone of profound grief and despondency that made her
secretly furious.
She could not help saying, spitefully:
“I don’t see why she should choose to make herself an unbidden guest
at our wedding! I hated her living, and I do not crave her company now
that she is dead!”
“Lelia!” her mother cried, in warning expostulation, while Laurie
started back so suddenly as to release himself from her clinging arms.
“You have forgotten that we should speak no ill of the dead, Lelia,” he
said sternly.
“I do not care! I will not play the hypocrite!” she was beginning
angrily, when a hasty rap at the door gave them all a violent start.
Laurie flew to open it, thankful for an interruption to his bride’s
hysterics.
It was Miss Willoughby’s faithful maid, tearful and nervous.
“Oh, do come quick as you can to my mistress. She has taken a sudden
turn for the worse, and Mrs. Goodwill says she is almost gone!” she
sobbed.
“Laurie, do not leave me! Mama, you may go, but I cannot bear to see
Aunt Cyrilla die!” cried Lelia, burying her face in the pillow; but
Laurie, without reply, darted from the room to that of the invalid,
whither Mrs. Ritchie followed, presently, dragging her sullen,
reluctant daughter by the hand.
They saw Laurie kneeling by the bed, wiping away the death dew from the
blue, pinched face, and gazing in tender sorrow on the beloved relative
sinking away so fast into the eternal silence of death--a few faint
gasps and all was over, and again the pall of woe hung darkly over The
Crags.