CHAPTER XXXIX.

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.