ONLY A DREAM!
Lelia was sitting up in her bed, a beautiful vision of frenzy, her
golden hair like a veil about her, her large blue eyes glaring into
space, her white arms, exquisite as sculptured marble, outstretched
aimlessly, while she muttered in a dreary monologue:
“How my arms ache! She was very heavy! I do not see how my arms held
out to drag her so far from the window to throw her in the old well!”
The old general shuddered and muttered:
“What a strange fancy! She is dwelling on the terrible tragedy of
Rosalind’s attempted murder! She is ill, and it has taken hold on her
mind. Shake her, Laurie, and bring her to her senses.”
“I did before I went to her mother, but it only makes her worse. She
seems in some strange trance, from which she cannot be roused.”
“I will try,” said the old man, and he shook her gently, crying:
“Wake up, Lelia, wake up! You are having nightmare dreams!”
She struggled in his grasp; she repulsed him, furiously, muttering:
“Let me alone, Gipsy Darke! You shall not drag me down to your watery
grave! What a splash there was when I pushed her over the brink! I hope
the sound did not come to any one’s ears. I am afraid to go back to the
house alone. What if I met some one? But my disguise is perfect. I am
afraid there is blood on my hands. It ran from her in streams!”
She held up her beautiful white hands in horror before her staring eyes.
“They are quite red--quite red! I must wash off the stain before Laurie
comes back!”
“This is terrible! She must be aroused from her dreadful dream, poor
child! Lelia! Lelia!”
“Do not touch her, you only make her rave more wildly and loudly!”
Laurie told him, but the alarmed old man would not desist.
He leaned over and stroked her hair, her face, her hands. He called her
tender names of endearment.
She clutched him viciously, hissing:
“Give me the ring! It is mine, I tell you! How dared Laurie give you my
engagement-ring? I will have it, or I will murder you!”
Her white hands clutched the old man’s hair; she dragged it out by
handfuls.
She reached out, as for a weapon, and kept striking his head in a
hideous pantomime, terribly revolting.
Laurie interposed to release his father, and the old man, somewhat
worsted in the struggle, was glad enough to leave the frenzied
somnambulist alone.
“This is awful. She is like a maniac, poor creature. It must be
an attack of brain-fever. You should call the doctor at once,” he
sputtered weakly.
“No, no!” cried an expostulating voice.
It was Mrs. Ritchie, who had been listening outside the door. Hearing
the general’s voice, she came in, pale and alarmed, to Lelia, who had
sunk down speechless among the pillows.
“It was only a dream, my dear general. She has been like this night
after night since the tragedy, but in the day she is quite herself, and
wonders with me over her strange hallucination. It is simply a case of
overwrought nerves, brought on by her keen sympathies and the horrors
we have undergone. I think Laurie ought to take her away to-morrow for
rest and change of scene,” the mother said anxiously.
“She should spend a few weeks first in a sanatorium,” the old soldier
returned bluntly, chafing under the loss of the handful of gray locks
clutched in Lelia’s writhing white fingers. He should be almost bald on
top now, and his vanity had always been hurt at the very idea.
“I object to the sanatorium most decidedly,” cried the other. “See, she
is all right again! The spell is over. It was the worst she has had,
but she will be quiet now.”
She moved toward the door, as a gentle hint to the general that both
should retire, but suddenly she paused.
Lelia was sitting up in bed again, staring wildly as before, muttering
disjointed words.
“If he had given me back the ring--my beautiful ring--I would not have
struck her so hard with that thing I snatched off the table! Stubborn?
Yes, she defied me! Me, Lelia Ritchie! That low-born Gipsy! I did not
mean to kill her, but I struck too hard in my hate! How tightly the
ring fitted her finger! I had hard work to wrench it off! But I have it
back, my precious ring! Only I shall never dare to wear it, for Laurie
must never know! It is all black with her blood, too; it will never
shine again!”
It was in vain that the horrified mother tried to seal the betraying
lips with a frantic hand. Lelia only thrust her aside roughly, and
babbled on:
“My beautiful white gown, it is all ruined, too, with the blood-stains!
That one with the beautiful duchess lace, you know, mama. I hid it
away; I hated to burn it. Some day I will lock the door, and try to
wash it white again! But how about my soul? Will that ever be white
again?”
She laughed mirthlessly, and they shuddered, all three of them, it had
such a terrible sound.
“Lelia, Lelia, be silent!” commanded her mother, but the frenzied voice
raved on:
“She will never get the letter Laurie wrote to tell her that he loved
her, and would return some day to claim her for his bride! Ha, ha! I
have that letter, both the letters, all hidden away from sight. It
might be better to burn them to-night, before Laurie comes and finds
them in the closet!”
To their amazement, she slipped from the bed, pushing angrily aside the
maternal hand that tried to restrain her movements.
With outstretched hands and wide, unseeing eyes, she moved unerringly
to the wardrobe.
“There is nothing there--she is only dreaming!” the mother sobbed,
giving way to wild alarm.
No one answered. All were watching Lelia with bated breath.
Opening the wardrobe, she drew from some compartment a tightly rolled
up bundle, and began to tear it apart; but Mrs. Ritchie caught it
wildly from her hands.