The Bride of the Tomb and Queenie's Part 12

"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 b.a.l.l.s 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 pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sing. 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 a.s.serts, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sionately 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.