CHAPTER XII

She was free, she was free! that happy thought beat time in Lily's heart to her wildly rushing feet. She was outside of that horrible prison, old Haidee was locked in, and could not pursue her, old Peter could not return for several hours. She had that much time in advance of them. Only a few miles lay between her and her loved home. Surely, surely, with the start she had she could distance her enemies and reach the haven of rest for which she yearned and prayed.

She ran on and on, her brain reeling, her heart beating almost to suffocation, the perspiration running down her face in streams.

Sheer exhaustion at last caused her to slacken her pace and look behind her at the lonely stretch of road over which her flying feet had swiftly carried her. The old house in which she had passed such awful hours was out of sight; a turn in the road had hidden it from view. No baleful pursuer was on her track yet. She turned and looked before her. A long stretch of country road, dotted here and there with poor-looking houses, lay ahead. She wet her handkerchief in a rill that trickled by the side of the road, bound it about her throbbing head, and set forward again, steadily, but at a less swinging pace than she had used before. Exhausted nature could not hold out at the rapid rate with which she had begun.

On and on she went through the blistering sunshine. Her head ached, the hot road burnt her feet, the warm wind blew the dust into her strained and weary eyes. No matter—she did not heed these trifling things. She was free! That was the glad refrain to which her bounding heart kept time. She was so happy she could not realize her great physical weakness and weariness.

It seemed to her at last that hours had passed since she had set forth on her journey, carefully following some directions Fanny Colville had given her. The houses and lots began to stand nearer together. She was getting nearer to the great city. She began to be afraid that she would meet old Peter Leveret returning to his home after his errand to Doctor Pratt.

At last she came to a little house standing apart from the others. She peeped in and saw an elderly woman sitting at the open door sewing on a coarse garment, and singing blithely at her task. She opened the gate and went up to her.

"Will you let me come in and rest, and have a drink of water?" said she, gently. "I am very tired!"

The woman looked up in surprise. God knows what she thought of the poor girl standing there bareheaded and dusty, in her blue morning dress, looking so drooping and weary, but she moved aside and said kindly:

"Yes! dear heart, come in and rest, and have a bit and a sup—you look as if you needed all three."

The kind words and gentle smile went to the lonely girl's heart. Tears started into her eyes as she took the offered glass of water and drained it thirstily.

"I thank you, I do not wish anything to eat," she answered wearily, "but if you will give me an old bonnet I will be glad—I have no bonnet, you see—and an old dress, for I do not wish to go into the city with this morning-dress—I will pay you well, indeed I will. See, I will give you my diamond ring."

The woman started in surprise as her strange visitant turned the costly ring upon her finger.

"Here is some strange mystery," she thought within herself. "The girl is running away, mayhap, and wants a disguise."

She went to a closet, and brought out an old straw hat and thick veil, and a long, light sack somewhat worn.

"I will not take your ring, my dear," she said kindly. "You may take these things, though, and welcome. Maybe I am doing wrong in helping you to run away, but then again I may be doing you a great kindness. You look very forlorn, my poor dear."

Lily went to work in a dazed kind of way putting on the long sack over her dress and the hat on her head. This done she wound the thick veil tightly over her face and turned to go.

"I thank you for your kindness, my good woman," she said. "I will come back here some time and reward you richly, I will indeed. Now I am going. If anybody comes here to ask about me be sure and tell them I have not been here. Do not let them know–"

Whatever else she was going to say died unuttered on her pale lips. Exhausted nature was giving away. She threw up her hands wildly, staggered forward a step, and fell fainting on the floor.

"Poor soul," said the good woman, kneeling down on the floor, and loosening the hat and veil from her head, "she is dead tired-out."

She straightened Lily out upon the floor, and dashed cold water into her white face, but with no success. The swoon was a deep one, and it was fully an hour before the girl was sufficiently revived to be lifted up by the woman's strong arms and laid upon a clean white bed.

"A beauty and no mistake," thought the warm-hearted creature, smoothing back the damp, golden ringlets from the marble white brow on the pillow.

Lily's large, blue eyes opened and looked up at her in amaze.

"Am I sick? Have I been here long?" she inquired, struggling up to a sitting posture and looking out through the window anxiously. "Why, the sun is setting," said she, turning her bewildered face on her kind attendant.

"Yes, you fainted and were a long time coming to," was the answer: "you have been here more than an hour."

Lily slipped down from the bed and began to put on her hat and veil with trembling hands.

"I must be going," she said; "I have far to go yet, and it is growing so late."

Before the astonished woman could remonstrate, she was out of the house, going slowly on her way. She was so weak she could not walk very fast. Her impetuous will alone sustained her dragging footsteps. Thick twilight had fallen before she entered the busy, bustling city. Sorely frightened at finding herself alone in the gathering darkness, yet afraid that the glare of the gaslights would reveal her shrinking form to her pursuers, she shrank along in the friendly shadows, drawing back nervously from the hurrying forms that brushed past her, and trembling at every footstep behind her. But in spite of her nervousness she at length entered the elegant street where her father resided.

All was gaiety and life in the brilliant houses as she hurried past them. The light from the drawing-rooms streamed out upon her shrinking form.

Wild and entrancing strains of music filled the night air. Long lines of carriages were drawn up in front of some of the houses whose owners were holding balls and receptions. She knew them all; they were all friends of hers: but she flitted past them like a spirit, pausing not in her frightened yet happy course until she stood before the windows of her father's handsome mansion.

These windows were lighted, too, but not so brightly as some; music, too, stole through them, but it was soft and subdued. Death had been there so recently they had not the heart to be gay, she thought.

Wild with her joy she threw off her disguising hat and veil and running up the broad, marble steps rang the bell. It was opened by the stately old servitor whom she had been accustomed to from childhood. But instead of welcoming her home, the gray-haired old man fled wildly down the hall after one glance into her lovely white face.

"He takes me for a ghost," she thought, laughing and running after him down the wide hall till she reached the drawing-room door which stood open for coolness that sultry night.

She stopped in the doorway, framed like a picture in the hall gaslights, and looked into the room.

They were all there before her—her dear ones! The piano stood in the center of the room, its back towards her, with Mrs. Vance on the music-stool, directly facing her. Her white hands strayed over the pearl keys, and Lancelot Darling stood beside her, and turned the leaves of her music.

A low divan was drawn near them, and Ada rested upon it, looking very fair and ethereal in her deep mourning dress. Her father sat beside her looking very grave and sad.

"Papa, papa!" cried poor Lily in a choking voice.

The passionate cry, low as it was, was distinctly heard by the quartette. They all looked up and saw her standing there in the light with her wild, white face and streaming golden hair.

CHAPTER XIII

The group in the drawing-room gazed at Lily for a moment in mingled awe and consternation, but suddenly, before word or sound broke the trance of silence, the beautiful picture was wholly blotted out and obliterated by a blackness of darkness that filled and flooded the wide hall.

Then the sound of women's screams filled the grand drawing-room.

"Lily, Lily!" screamed Ada, throwing herself into her father's arms, while Mrs. Vance fell writhing upon the floor, shrieking in abject terror.

Lancelot Darling paused a moment to extricate himself from the clinging hands of the kneeling woman, then bounded out into the hall.

Darkness met him only as he ran excitedly up and down its length. There was no one there. The front door, standing wide open, attracted his attention. He went out on the porch and looked up and down. Just then Mr. Lawrence came out and joined in the search. There was no one passing. They went in and found Willis, the aged servitor, who had returned to his post, and was lighting up the gas again.

"Willis, what is the meaning of this?" he asked, sharply. "The hall door open, the gas out, and you absent from your post!"

"On my soul, Mr. Lawrence. I could not help it! I saw a ghost," said the man, looking about him in visible trepidation.

"Explain yourself," said his master, sternly.

"I went to answer the door-bell," said Willis, trembling, "and when I opened the door there stood a ghost, all in white, looking at me and smiling. I was so frightened I let go the door-handle and ran away; I beg your pardon for neglecting my duty, sir, and leaving the door ajar," concluded the man, humbly.

"What sort of a ghost did you see?" asked Mr. Darling.

The man's eyes grew large and wild.

"Perhaps I ought not to tell you," said he, "but, begging your pardon, Mr. Lawrence, and yours, Mr. Darling, it was the spirit of our poor lost Miss Lily!"

Mr. Lawrence grew pale as he looked at the man.

"Come, Lance; come, Willis," he said, "we will search the house from top to bottom. There is some mystery here which we may penetrate."

They looked into every room and closet, they neglected no hiding place from garret to cellar, but no one, either ghost or being, was discovered. Mr. Lawrence went up to Ada's room to see if she were recovering from her agitation.

She was lying in bed pale, but very quiet, attended by her maid. He sent the girl away, and told his daughter what Willis had seen, and how vainly they had searched the house.

"Papa, what do you think?" asked she, in low, awe-struck tones. "Was it, indeed, as the man asserts, the restless spirit of my sister? It was like her, only paler and more shadowy, as a spirit well might be."

"Ada, I do not know what to think," said her father in low, moved tones, "I am lost in a maze of doubt and conjecture. Can it be that my daughter's soul cannot rest while her poor desecrated body remains uncoffined?"

"It may be so," said Ada, weeping. "What a mournful tone was in that voice as it breathed your name!"

He started up, pacing the floor in wild agitation.

"I must go down to Lance," he said. "We will go and see the detective again to-night, and learn if any clew has been found. We must find her body if skill and money combined can accomplish it; I cannot bear for her restless soul to be seeking its body at my hands!"

Mrs. Vance had retired to her room in a state of abject terror.

She believed that she had seen and heard the veritable spirit of the girl she had murdered, instigated thereto by jealousy.

Her bold and venturesome spirit had never yet felt the promptings of remorse for her dreadful deed. She rejoiced that Lily was dead, and that the shameful stigma of suicide lay upon her memory; though she was the daily witness of the bereaved family's sorrow, though she saw that Lancelot Darling was aged as if ten years had passed over his head in the past few weeks, still she felt no grief for her sin, and kept on her resolute way, swearing in her secret soul to win the young man whom she passionately adored, and whose wealth and position made him the most eligible parti in the whole city. Love and ambition alike spurred her on to the attainment of her cherished object.

But the dreadful revelation of old Haidee had struck a lightning flash of terror to her guilty soul.

She had believed herself secure in her sin; she had thought it known only to herself of all the world, and the knowledge that her secret belonged to another had almost crazed her with the fear of its betrayal. She regretted that she had not followed the old witch home that day and struck another secret blow that would have sealed the old woman's lips forever.

She who had struck down so ruthlessly the fair and blooming life of Lily Lawrence would have felt no compunction in ending prematurely the old and sin-blasted existence of Haidee Leveret. All that she lacked was the chance.

Now another scathing monition had been hurled against her guilty conscience. In the hour when old Haidee's continued silence and absence had begun to inspire her with confidence again, when the wooing tones had brought Lancelot Darling to her side, when she could almost feel his breath upon her cheek as he bent to turn the pages of her music—in that supreme hour the image of the woman she hated had risen to blast her sight, and to come between her and the love she sought. It was horrible, it was maddening.

She sought her solitary apartment and flung herself face downward on the bed, afraid to lift her heavy eyes lest they should be blasted by the sight of the restless spirit which her guilty hand had driven forth a wanderer from the fair citadel it once inhabited.

"Do the dead walk?" she said to herself, in fearful agitation, "do they revisit the haunts of life and love? Do they ever return and denounce their murderers? Oh! God, why do I ask myself these fruitless questions? Do I not know? Have I not looked upon the face of the dead this night? Ah! what if she had pointed a ghostly finger at me, and said before them all, 'Thou art my murderess!'"

Shivering as if with the ague she buried her head in the bed-clothes.

A sudden rap at the door caused her to start violently.

"Enter," said she, almost inaudibly.

It was only one of the neat housemaids. She looked concerned at the ghastly white face the widow lifted on her entrance.

"Are you ill, Mrs. Vance?" she inquired.

"No—yes—that is, my head aches badly," was the confused answer.

The maid had heard the story of the ghostly visitor from Willis, and rightly attributed the agitation of the lady to that cause.

She did not allude to it, however, as Mrs. Vance did not. She simply said:

"I found this trinket in the hall as I was passing through it, Mrs. Vance. I have shown it to Miss Lawrence, but she does not know anything about it, so I came to ask if it belonged to you?"

She held the piece of gold in her hand. Mrs. Vance arose and examined it by the light.

It was the broken half of a golden locket such as gentlemen wear on their watch-chains. It was of costly workmanship, richly chased, with a delicate monogram set in minute diamonds. The intertwined letters were "H. C."

"It does not belong to me, Mary," answered Mrs. Vance. "It has probably broken off from some gentleman's watch-chain, and dropped as he was passing through the hall. But I do not know to whom it can belong. We have had no visitors to-day, and indeed I cannot recollect any acquaintance we have with the initials, 'H. C.' What do you intend to do with it?"

"I shall ask Mr. Lawrence to take charge of it as soon as he returns," replied Mary. "It may be that he can find the owner. It is quite valuable, is it not, ma'am?"

"Yes, it has some value, Mary—the monogram is set with real diamonds, though they are very small. It evidently belongs to a person of some means," said Mrs. Vance, returning the trinket to Mary's hand.

The trim little maid said a polite good-night and tripped away with the jewel carefully wrapped in a handkerchief. Mrs. Vance, with her thoughts turned into a new channel, sat musing thoughtfully over the little incident. The longer she thought it over the more mysterious it appeared.

"To whom can it belong?" said she to herself. "No gentlemen at all have called here to-day. Can it have any connection with our mysterious visitation to-night?"