repose which she sorely needed, the chances were that her nerves
might fail her, through sheer exhaustion, when the time came for
facing the risk and making the effort to escape. Sleep was
falling on her even now--and sleep she must have. She had no fear
of failing to wake at the needful time. Falling asleep, with a
special necessity for rising at a given hour present to her mind,
Anne (like most other sensitively organized people) could trust
herself to wake at that given hour, instinctively. She put her
lighted candle in a safe position, and laid down on the bed. In
less than five minutes, she was in a deep sleep.
* * * * * *
The church clock struck the quarter to eleven. Hester Dethridge
showed herself at the back garden door. Geoffrey crossed the
lawn, and joined her. The light of the lamp in the passage fell
on his face. She started back from the sight of it.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
She shook her head; and pointed through the dining-room door to
the brandy-bottle on the table.
"I'm as sober as you are, you fool!" he said. "Whatever else it
is, it's not that."
Hester looked at him again. He was right. However unsteady his
gait might be, his speech was not the speech, his eyes were not
the eyes, of a drunken man.
"Is she in her room for the night?"
Hester made the affirmative sign.
Geoffrey ascended the st airs, swaying from side to side. He
stopped at the top, and beckoned to Hester to join him. He went
on into his room; and, signing to her to follow him, closed the
door.
He looked at the partition wall--without approaching it. Hester
waited, behind him
"Is she asleep?" he asked.
Hester went to the wall; listened at it; and made the affirmative
reply.
He sat down. "My head's queer," he said. "Give me a drink of
water." He drank part of the water, and poured the rest over his
head. Hester turned toward the door to leave him. He instantly
stopped her. "_I_ can't unwind the strings. _I_ can't lift up the
paper. Do it."
She sternly made the sign of refusal: she resolutely opened the
door to leave him. "Do you want your Confession back?" he asked.
She closed the door, stolidly submissive in an instant; and
crossed to the partition wall.
She lifted the loose strips of paper on either side of the
wall--pointed through the hollowed place--and drew back again to
the other end of the room.
He rose and walked unsteadily from the chair to the foot of his
bed. Holding by the wood-work of the bed; he waited a little.
While he waited, he became conscious of a change in the strange
sensations that possessed him. A feeling as of a breath of cold
air passed over the right side of his head. He became steady
again: he could calculate his distances: he could put his hands
through the hollowed place, and draw aside the light curtains,
hanging from the hook in the ceiling over the head of her bed. He
could look at his sleeping wife.
She was dimly visible, by the light of the candle placed at the
other end of her room. The worn and weary look had disappeared
from her face. All that had been purest and sweetest in it, in
the by-gone time, seemed to be renewed by the deep sleep that
held her gently. She was young again in the dim light: she was
beautiful in her calm repose. Her head lay back on the pillow.
Her upturned face was in a position which placed her completely
at the mercy of the man under whose eyes she was sleeping--the
man who was looking at her, with the merciless resolution in him
to take her life.
After waiting a while, he drew back. "She's more like a child
than a woman to-night," he muttered to himself under his breath.
He glanced across the room at Hester Dethridge. The lighted
candle which she had brought up stairs with her was burning near
the place where she stood. "Blow it out," he whispered. She never
moved. He repeated the direction. There she stood, deaf to him.
What was she doing? She was looking fixedly into one of the
corners of the room.
He turned his head again toward the hollowed place in the wall.
He looked at the peaceful face on the pillow once more. He
deliberately revived his own vindictive sense of the debt that he
owed her. "But for you," he whispered to himself, "I should have
won the race: but for you, I should have been friends with my
father: but for you, I might marry Mrs. Glenarm." He turned back
again into the room while the sense of it was at its fiercest in
him. He looked round and round him. He took up a towel;
considered for a moment; and threw it down again.
A new idea struck him. In two steps he was at the side of his
bed. He seized on one of the pillows, and looked suddenly at
Hester. "It's not a drunken brute, this time," he said to her.
"It's a woman who will fight for her life. The pillow's the
safest of the two." She never answered him, and never looked
toward him. He made once more for the place in the wall; and
stopped midway between it and his bed--stopped, and cast a
backward glance over his shoulder.
Hester Dethridge was stirring at last.
With no third person in the room, she was looking, and moving,
nevertheless, as if she was following a third person along the
wall, from the corner. Her lips were parted in horror; her eyes,
opening wider and wider, stared rigid and glittering at the empty
wall. Step by step she stole nearer and nearer to Geoffrey, still
following some visionary Thing, which was stealing nearer and
nearer, too. He asked himself what it meant. Was the terror of
the deed that he was about to do more than the woman's brain
could bear? Would she burst out screaming, and wake his wife?
He hurried to the place in the wall--to seize the chance, while
the chance was his.
He steadied his strong hold on the pillow.
He stooped to pass it through the opening.
He poised it over Anne's sleeping face.
At the same moment he felt Hester Dethridge's hand laid on him
from behind. The touch ran through him, from head to foot, like a
touch of ice. He drew back with a start, and faced her. Her eyes
were staring straight over his shoulder at something behind
him--looking as they had looked in the garden at Windygates.
Before he could speak he felt the flash of her eyes in _his_
eyes. For the third time, she had seen the Apparition behind him.
The homicidal frenzy possessed her. She flew at his throat like a
wild beast. The feeble old woman attacked the athlete!
He dropped the pillow, and lifted his terrible right arm to brush
her from him, as he might have brushed an insect from him.
Even as he raised the arm a frightful distortion seized on his
face. As if with an invisible hand, it dragged down the brow and
the eyelid on the right; it dragged down the mouth on the same
side. His arm fell helpless; his whole body, on the side under
t
he arm, gave way. He dropped on the floor, like a man shot dead.
Hester Dethridge pounced on his prostrate body--knelt on his
broad breast--and fastened her ten fingers on his throat.
* * * * * *
The shock of the fall woke Anne on the instant. She started
up--looked round--and saw a gap in the wall at the head of her
bed, and the candle-light glimmering in the next room.
Panic-stricken; doubting, for the moment, if she were in her
right mind, she drew back, waiting--listening--looking. She saw
nothing but the glimmering light in the room; she heard nothing
but a hoarse gasping, as of some person laboring for breath. The
sound ceased. There was an interval of silence. Then the head of
Hester Dethridge rose slowly into sight through the gap in the
wall--rose with the glittering light of madness in the eyes, and
looked at her.
She flew to the open window, and screamed for help.
Sir Patrick's voice answered her, from the road in front of the
cottage.
"Wait for me, for God's sake!" she cried.
She fled from the room, and rushed down the stairs. In another
moment, she had opened the door, and was out in the front garden.
As she ran to the gate, she heard the voice of a strange man on
the other side of it. Sir Patrick called to her encouragingly.
"The police man is with us," he said. "He patrols the garden at
night--he has a key." As he spoke the gate was opened from the
outside. She saw Sir Patrick, Arnold, and the policeman. She
staggered toward them as they came in--she was just able to say,
"Up stairs!" before her senses failed her. Sir Patrick saved her
from falling. He placed her on the bench in the garden, and
waited by her, while Arnold and the policeman hurried into the
cottage.
"Where first?" asked Arnold.
"The room the lady called from," said the policeman
They mounted the stairs, and entered Anne's room. The gap in the
wall was instantly observed by both of them. They looked through
it.
was kneeling at his head, praying.
EPILOGUE.
A MORNING CALL.
I.
THE newspapers have announced the return of Lord and Lady
Holchester to their residence in London, after an absence on the
continent of more than six months.
It is the height of the season. All day long, within the
canonical hours, the door of Holchester House is perpetually
opening to receive visitors. The vast majority leave their cards,
and go away again. Certain privileged individuals only, get out
of their carriages, and enter the house.
Among these last, arriving at an earlier hour than is customary,
is a person of distinction who is positively bent on seeing
either the master or the mistress of the house, and who will take
no denial. While this person is parleying with the chief of the
servants , Lord Holchester, passing from one room to another,
happens to cross the inner end of the hall. The person instantly
darts at him with a cry of "Dear Lord Holchester!" Julius turns,
and sees--Lady Lundie!
He is fairly caught, and he gives way with his best grace. As he
opens the door of the nearest room for her ladyship, he furtively
consults his watch, and says in his inmost soul, "How am I to get
rid of her before the others come?"
Lady Lundie settles down on a sofa in a whirlwind of silk and
lace, and becomes, in her own majestic way, "perfectly charming."
She makes the most affectionate inquiries about Lady Holchester,
about the Dowager Lady Holchester, about Julius himself. Where
have they been? what have they seen? have time and change helped
them to recover the shock of that dreadful event, to which Lady
Lundie dare not more particularly allude? Julius answers
resignedly, and a little absently. He makes polite inquiries, on
his side, as to her ladyship's plans and proceedings--with a mind
uneasily conscious of the inexorable lapse of time, and of
certain probabilities which that lapse may bring with it. Lady
Lundie has very little to say about herself. She is only in town
for a few weeks. Her life is a life of retirement. "My modest
round of duties at Windygates, Lord Holchester; occasionally
relieved, when my mind is overworked, by the society of a few
earnest friends whose views harmonize with my own--my existence
passes (not quite uselessly, I hope) in that way. I have no news;
I see nothing--except, indeed, yesterday, a sight of the saddest
kind." She pauses there. Julius observes that he is expected to
make inquiries, and makes them accordingly.
Lady Lundie hesitates; announces that her news refers to that
painful past event which she has already touched on; acknowledges
that she could not find herself in London without feeling an act
of duty involved in making inquiries at the asylum in which
Hester Dethridge is confined for life; announces that she has not
only made the inquiries, but has seen the unhappy woman herself;
has spoken to her, has found her unconscious of her dreadful
position, incapable of the smallest exertion of memory, resigned
to the existence that she leads, and likely (in the opinion of
the medical superintendent) to live for some years to come.
Having stated these facts, her ladyship is about to make a few of
those "remarks appropriate to the occasion," in which she excels,
when the door opens; and Lady Holchester, in search of her
missing husband, enters the room.
II.
There is a new outburst of affectionate interest on Lady Lundie's
part--met civilly, but not cordially, by Lady Holchester.
Julius's wife seems, like Julius, to be uneasily conscious of the
lapse of time. Like Julius again, she privately wonders how long
Lady Lundie is going to stay.
Lady Lundie shows no signs of leaving the sofa. She has evidently
come to Holchester House to say something--and she has not said
it yet. Is she going to say it? Yes. She is going to get, by a
roundabout way, to the object in view. She has another inquiry of
the affectionate sort to make. May she be permitted to resume the
subject of Lord and Lady Holchester's travels? They have been at
Rome. Can they confirm the shocking intelligence which has
reached her of the "apostasy" of Mrs. Glenarm?
Lady Holchester can confirm it, by personal xexperience. Mrs.
Glenarm has renounced the world, and has taken refuge in the
bosom of the Holy Catholic Church. Lady Holchester has seen her
in a convent at Rome. She is passing through the period of her
probation; and she is resolved to take the veil. Lady Lundie, as
to be too painful to dwell on--and, by way of varying it, goes
straight to the point at last. Has Lady I Holchester, in the
course of her continental experience, happened to meet with, or
to hear of--Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth?
"I have ceased, a
s you know, to hold any communication with my
relatives," Lady Lundie explains. "The course they took at the
time of our family trial--the sympathy they felt with a Person
whom I can not even now trust myself to name more
particularly--alienated us from each other. I may be grieved,
dear Lady Holchester; but I bear no malice. And I shall always
feel a motherly interest in hearing of Blanche's welfare. I have
been told that she and her husband were traveling, at the time
when you and Lord Holchester were traveling. Did you meet with
them?"
Julius and his wife looked at each other. Lord Holchester is
dumb. Lady Holchester replies:
"We saw Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Brinkworth at Florence, and afterward
at Naples, Lady Lundie. They returned to England a week since, in
anticipation of a certain happy event, which will possibly
increase the members of your family circle. They are now in
London. Indeed, I may tell you that we expect them here to lunch
to-day."
Having made this plain statement, Lady Holchester looks at Lady
Lundie. (If _that_ doesn't hasten her departure, nothing will!)
Quite useless! Lady Lundie holds her ground. Having heard
absolutely nothing of her relatives for the last six months, she
is burning with curiosity to hear more. There is a name she has
not mentioned yet. She places a certain constraint upon herself,
and mentions it now.
"And Sir Patrick?" says her ladyship, subsiding into a gentle
melancholy, suggestive of past injuries condoned by Christian
forgiveness. "I only know what report tells me. Did you meet with
Sir Patrick at Florence and Naples, also?"
Julius and his wife look at each other again. The clock in the
hall strikes. Julius shudders. Lady Holchester's patience begins
to give way. There is an awkward pause. Somebody must say
something. As before, Lady Holchester replies "Sir Patrick went
abroad, Lady Lundie, with his niece and her husband; and Sir
Patrick has come back with them."
"In good health?" her ladyship inquires.
"Younger than ever," Lady Holchester rejoins.
Lady Lundie smiles satirically. Lady Holchester notices the
smile; decides that mercy shown to _this_ woman is mercy
misplaced; and announces (to her husband's horror) that she has
news to tell of Sir Patrick, which will probably take his
sister-in-law by surprise.
Lady Lundie waits eagerly to hear what the news is.
"It is no secret," Lady Holchester proceeds--"though it is only
known, as yet to a few intimate friends. Sir Patrick has made an
important change in his life."
Lady Lundie's charming smile suddenly dies out.
"Sir Patrick is not only a very clever and a very agreeable man,"
Lady Holchester resumes a little maliciously; "he is also, in all
his habits and ways (as you well know), a man younger than his
years--who still possesses many of the qualities which seldom
fail to attract women."
Lady Lundie starts to her feet.
"You don't mean to tell me, Lady Holchester, that Sir Patrick is
married?"
"I do."
Her ladyship drops back on the sofa; helpless really and truly
helpless, under the double blow that has fallen on her. She is
not only struck out of her place as the chief woman of the
family, but (still on the right side of forty) she is socially
superannuated, as The Dowager Lady Lundie, for the rest of her
life!
"At his age!" she exclaims, as soon as she can speak.
"Pardon me for reminding you," Lady Holchester answers, "that
plenty of men marry at Sir Patrick's age. In his case, it is only
due to him to say that his motive raises him beyond the reach of
ridicule or reproach. His marriage is a good action, in the
highest sense of the word. It does honor to _him,_ as well as to
the lady who shares his position and his name."
"A young girl, of course!" is Lady Lundie's next remark.