CHAPTER XVIII.

“AT MIDNIGHT.”

The household retired to rest early, at Marchant’s Hold, and Ismay was in her bed and asleep by ten o’clock, but with a purpose in her mind that made her wake to the minute as the clock rang two.

She had left her blinds up, and as she sat up in her bed she saw the moonlight lying on the carpet. The rain was over.

“That is lucky, I sha’n’t need much light,” she thought composedly, as she got up and put on a warm, dark dressing-gown, and woolen slippers that would make no sound.

She must investigate that room up-stairs, and her only chance was at night, when her mother and Cristiane were safe.

“Besides,” she reminded herself quite gaily, “I shall have to use it at night, when I need it; and I may as well get used to it. It is at night that mother and Marcus Wray will make their plans, at night that they will carry them out. And at night I always lock my door! I’m very nervous--in the dark!” she laughed noiselessly. “I must impress that on my parent.” But it was without a tremor that she slipped out into the silent house and up the stairs, where there were no windows and the darkness was inky.

There was no sound of music to-night to guide her as she stood at last in the black hall, where a dozen shut doors kept the darkness inviolate. She felt in her pocket for her end of candle and matches. They were there, but she dared not strike a light here in the corridor. One hand held at arm’s length before her, she moved on cautiously, till she felt a door. The handle turned under her fingers, and she went in without a sound; without a sound the door closed behind her, though for all she knew she stood alone at night, in the room where Thomas had been terror-stricken in daylight.

With steady fingers she lit the candle, and stared round her as it burned dimly. The room was chilly and close, but it was not the room she wanted, only an unused bedroom, a little dusty. She pinched out her candle and went into the hall again.

“What a fool I am not to remember!” she thought angrily; “it’s cold up here, and no fun.”

She tried three more rooms in succession; all had no sign in them of any musical instrument, nor ghostly habitation. Could she be in the wrong hall?

She opened the next door in doubtful irritation, but her hand stopped with a jerk as she lifted it to strike a match.

Opposite her the moonlight poured through a wide, low window, till the room seemed light as day after the dark hall, and in the very full flood of the moonlight stood the little spinet on its high, thin legs, its narrow ivory keyboard shining dustily in the moon-rays.

An inexplicable terror that she was not alone clutched at the girl’s bold heart. Thomas was right, there was something queer about this room! Without turning, Ismay stretched out her arm backward, to shut the door. But it was fast already; noiselessly it had swung back on its hinges, without even a click of the latch.

In the cold, musty air the girl felt choked. With quick, steady fingers she lit her candle; to stay in this room with no light but the moon’s was beyond her. As the lighted wick burned from blue into yellow, she sighed with relief.

“I--to be frightened by Thomas’ silly stories!” she thought contemptuously. “If I had heard nothing about the room I should never have thought of having cold chills down my back.”

With the thought she had set the candle on the side of the old spinet that was supposed to sound from the touch of fingers that had long been mold. It was silent enough now. Not a sound came from it as she opened the back and peered into the depths of the case where the strings were stretched like a piano’s. She put her slim, long arm down inside it, and felt the instrument all over. It was a plain, old-fashioned thing enough, strong and good still. But it apparently held no trace of any mechanism that would make it play alone at night.

Ismay drew back and stared at it. In the fantastic mingling of moonlight and candle-light her uncanny beauty was more witchlike than ever, with the flaxen hair falling to her knees over the dark wrapper.

“I should say Thomas was crazy if I had not heard the thing myself!” she said aloud, and there was nothing but puzzled curiosity in her voice.

“But it’s got to be made to play again, and I don’t know the national air of the mice.”

She put a stool carefully in front of the spinet, and sat down, fumbling at the keys. Clear, thin, and sweet, the notes tinkled softly under her fingers.

“The tune--how did it go?” she tried for it softly. It had been a strange tune, with queer intervals; an air that was very old and wailing.

She played a few bars, stumblingly.

How cold, how very cold the room was, and what was the matter with the candle? Without a flicker the yellow flame had turned blue as she stared at it, it went out; she could see the wick smoking in the moonlight.

“Truly,” said Ismay, to herself, “I must have iron nerves! I’m not frightened. Yet I don’t think that was a draft.”

Without moving, she tried the strange tune again, and this time the very terror of death fell on her. Without turning her head, she knew there was something behind her; something very cold and threatening; something that in a minute would be at her throat, choking her till her hand fell from the keyboard. She swung sharply round. There was nothing there.

“Thomas’ nonsense again, and my fancy,” she said deliberately, for the room was certainly empty. “My nerves are playing me tricks, after all.”

As she started, in the darkness beyond the patch of moonlight she saw something, the picture of a woman hanging on the wall.

“The late owner of the spinet!”

She got up, and lit her candle. Light in hand, she went close to the picture, till the painted eyes were plain. Dark eyes they were, in a pale, cruel face, with red lips, like Ismay’s own. The fair hair was piled high on the head; the dress was of the latter part of the last century.

“So you are the lady that walks! And you are a little like me, which is all the better,” she murmured. “And if you are a wise ghost, you will help me, and not hinder me, for you and I are all the defense Cristiane le Marchant has.”

Her eyes, that were full of a strange compelling, were fastened on the picture. Childish and far-fetched as it was, it seemed to the girl that she was bending something to her own ends, something both wickeder and weaker than she. A strange delight thrilled her.

“I am not afraid any more!” she cried out, with soft rapture, “and I remember the tune now.”

With a noiseless movement, she was at the spinet, under her fingers the whole tune tinkled out, and this time there was no dread in her of a lurking terror behind. Ghost, imagination, mice--whatever it was--she, Ismay Trelane, was its mistress, by the very courage of her heart.

There was nothing there, nothing! Yet there should be a terror there that would walk in darkness, and hear, and know, and see, till Marcus Wray was thwarted in this house, at least.

The cold air of the room had struck to her bones, and she drew her warm gown about her as she turned to go. She had learned enough to go on. From now, not a word spoken at midnight, or a trap laid, would escape Ismay Trelane. She was laughing to herself as she walked to the door. But as she turned the handle, she stopped.

The spinet was playing. Clear, unearthly, that strange tune tinkled out, under her very eyes.

Whatever it was, it was very queer. She stared incredulously, as Thomas had done, but, unlike Thomas, she was not frightened.

“Thank you!” she said gravely, and without bravado. “If you are a musical box, or whatever you are, you are going to be my friend.” And without a tremor she turned to the uncanny thing when its tune was done, and peered once more into its depths.

Had she been blind before? For now she saw plainly enough a small brass bracket, black with age, almost invisible in dust. It was a plain oblong slip, about the size of a railway-ticket, and it stuck out from the inside of the case.

Leaning down, Ismay pressed it, ever so lightly.

Almost immediately the weird music poured into the room.

The girl saw the whole thing now. The woman to whom it belonged had had it made, so that she might hear the tune she loved without playing it. Her threat to her servant had been a grim and mocking jest.

Very quietly, she put out her light and went out into the dark hall and down-stairs, and yet she was trembling. If it were all a trick, why had her candle gone out?

“If I had once been frightened I should have died of it, up there in the moonlight!” she said to herself, with conviction.