“How beautiful!” she exclaimed, pausing for a moment to look out of the window on to the moonlit terrace below, “but how weird! Are you sure, my dear, you do not mind sleeping alone in this part of the house? You looked, this morning, as if you had not slept, and I know so many people are nervous.”
Just for a moment—only for a moment—my courage completely left me, and it was on my lips to say I was nervous, and would she allow me to change my room, but something stopped me: was it that feeling again of some one standing beside me, that froze the words on my lips, and left me standing looking at Lady Glencoine, who was, I think, beginning to wonder at my silence?
“Oh no, thank you,” I said hurriedly. “I really like that room, it is so pretty; and it would be quite wrong to make a change, I think,” and I laughed nervously.
She looked at me for a moment, and seemed as if she were about to say something more; but evidently changed her mind, for, taking me to my room, she said good-night, and left me, and I heard her steps growing fainter and fainter in the distance.
I hastily rang for my maid, and, to give myself an excuse for detaining her, I insisted upon having my hair thoroughly washed and brushed. But, keep her as long as I could, the time went slowly, and it was not yet midnight when she left me, and I knew now I was alone for the night, to face it as best I could.
I noticed the blinds had been left up, and the curtains were not drawn—the housemaid, I suppose, having thought I liked this; and I left it so, preferring even the ghostly moonlight to the utter loneliness of darkness. I determined to keep awake, to listen and to watch; but gradually my eyelids drooped over my tired eyes, and sleep stole over me, and being, I suppose, exhausted by the events of the night before, I fell into a troubled, restless slumber. Again I was awaked, and I opened my eyes. I knew what they would fall on. For a moment the room was in slight shadow, caused by a cloud passing over the moon; but as it cleared away, and left it in brilliant light again, it revealed the figure of Eleanor, Lady Glencoine, standing there with the same dress, jewels, and expression of the night before, still with her finger upraised, beckoning, almost entreating. There was no doubt in my mind as to what I should do: an irresistible force compelled me to follow her. Did we open the door, or did we go through it? I never knew, but in a moment we were in the gallery. Here, even in spite of the terror which possessed me, I could not help noticing the strange beauty of the scene.
The gallery was flooded almost from one end to the other with the moonlight, imparting to the pictures a lifelike appearance, making them into a living audience watching us as we flitted by; I with my strange guide always going on, sometimes passing into the deep shadows that were cast here and there, and then emerging again into the light which lit up the radiant jewels she was wearing, and I felt as if I were in a dream that had no awakening, or maybe had passed into another world of silence and spirits.
Quite at the far end she paused, and I noticed her hand with the ring on it felt up and down the last panel but one, and then she pushed back what seemed a bolt, it looked so easy, and I felt sure I had seen how she did it: the panel opened, and she went through a small stone archway, I still following, into a vaulted passage, and then for a moment I lost sight of her, but only for a moment, and as I turned what seemed to be a corner, I came upon a room, a small vaulted chamber, and as I looked into it, the certainty flashed across me that it was the room I had seen in my crystal. I held my breath: the lady was on her knees, almost tearing off her jewels, and throwing them into what seemed to be an aperture in the floor. When she had done, she took a stone which was lying by, and covered them with it; and then she stood for a moment wringing her hands over the spot, and I saw the ring, the only ornament that she had not divested herself of, slip off her finger on to the floor, and then, without appearing to notice it, she left the room. I stooped for one second, picked up the ring, and followed her.
As we came, so we returned—along the passage, through the still open panel, which closed behind me—into the gallery. I saw her face for one moment after this, and then throwing up her arms she vanished—vanished completely, as if she had never been there. I went to the window: nothing, nothing to be seen but the moon looking down in full beauty on the terrace garden, and no sound but the gentle moaning of the wind, which had risen during the night. Trembling in every limb, I stumbled back into my room, but more I cannot telclass="underline" I suppose I fainted; but the next thing I was conscious of was finding myself lying on my bed, the room in darkness, and still tightly grasped in my hand was the ring. I lit the candles, and kept them burning by me till the morning, when I fell into a sleep, and did not open my eyes till my maid stood by my bedside, and told me it was nearly breakfast time; “And, ma’am, you do look bad!” was her sympathetic remark.
I dismissed her, and, jumping from my bed, ran to the looking-glass. I really think I expected my hair was grey—but it was still its own natural brown, I was thankful to see; but there were great black rings under my eyes, and my lips and face had lost all their colour. I opened the drawer, and there, lying in all its beauty, was the ring. I think the stones were the most wonderful I had ever seen; and as I slipped it on to my finger it covered quite three parts of it. I hastily dressed, and, opening the door, passed downstairs. It is a curious fact, but that consciousness of another presence had gone, completely gone, and I realised this with a sense of freedom and release as I hurried on. I opened the dining-room door: I was evidently very late, and all eyes were turned upon me.
“Good gracious, Mrs. Haywood!” exclaimed Lord Glencoine, “what has happened to you? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”
I did not answer; I walked across the room to where he was standing, and in a voice trembling so that I could hardly frame my words, I handed him the ring. “Lord Glencoine,” I said, “is this the ring?”
He took it, and he too looked as if he had seen a ghost. Silence fell on them all for a moment, while they remained looking at me.
“Good Heavens!” he said at last, “where have you been to find this? Am I mad, or is it real?”
Here they all crowded round him. Lady Glencoine became quite pale, and I thought she would have fainted; and I could see they all shrank a little from me, as if they thought I had been too near the supernatural world.
“I have been,” I answered, sinking into a chair, “into the room my crystal showed me; I have seen your jewels there massed, heaped into a hole in the stone floor.”
And then, slowly and with many pauses, I told them word for word what had happened—where I had been and what I had seen. I think if it had not been for the ring, which lay on the table a tangible proof of my story, they would one and all have declared me mad. But even Captain Shelvey, who had treated the crystal-gazing with contempt and ridicule, sat silenced. No more breakfast was eaten; nothing else was thought of: one and all declared that I must go and take them there at once. Here Lady Glencoine interposed. Excited as she was, she would not have me do this now. Seeing my state of mental and physical exhaustion, she insisted upon my lying down in her sitting-room and plying me with beef tea and brandy.