CHAPTER XIII.

A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

Rosamond Raleigh’s blue eyes grew black as night as they stared in wildest terror into the face of the apparition.

A convulsive tremor crept over her frame. She fell back a few paces and lifted her hands with a maddened gesture.

“Keep back! keep back!” she shrieked. “My God! am I never to be free from this horrible thing? Lillian--look--for the love of Heaven, look!”

Lillian had been standing all this time, white and wild-eyed, gazing before her upon the awful sight. She turned aside with a low groan.

“Miss Raleigh, it is really true”--the girl’s voice was low and faint--“you are--you must be--haunted! I have never believed in such things before, but I can not doubt the evidence of my own eyesight upon so many occasions. I, of course, have never seen the young girl Noisette Duval, but you seem to recognize her.”

“Recognize her!” with a hysterical laugh. “I should think so indeed. Even that endless painting upon which she is always working is familiar to me. She died, stricken down by heart disease, in the round room yonder, while engaged in painting poppies and vine leaves upon an amber satin panel for a ball-dress--just the loveliest thing. Oh, Lillian!”--bursting into a flood of hysterical tears--“I have never been able to wear amber--_so_ becoming to me, too--since that day. There--thank Heaven, it is gone!” sinking into a seat with a sigh of intense relief.

Lillian came slowly forward and removed Miss Raleigh’s dainty kid boots, substituting velvet slippers; and then, Rosamond having donned a comfortable wrapper, Lillian began her nightly task of brushing out her long yellow hair. She was silent and sad; her heart lay quivering on her breast, bowed down with that awful weight of dull anguish and despair. Surely she was but a foot-ball of fate. What a burden for such young shoulders to bear! Yet she must bear it and be silent--for the present at least.

And while her heart was aching madly in her breast she stood and brushed out the silky hair of the idle, contemptuous beauty who was going to marry the man whom Lillian Leigh loved--the man who, with unheard-of fickleness, had asked her to marry him only that morning, and then at night had besought--oh, the irony of fate!--the woman who employed her as waiting-maid--servant--to be his wife. Could such perfidy be possible?

There is not a woman in the world who will fail to understand the emotions which racked the poor girl’s heart as these thoughts rushed through it like a torrent. Love--deep and devoted love--which at the same time was full of scorn and contempt; despair, anguish unutterable, yet all the time the pride of a woman to uphold her. Ah! woman’s pride--woman’s pride! When God made woman weak and loving, with such utter self-abnegation in her love, He gave her also the delicate, sensitive instinct which keeps many a woman’s feet from by and forbidden paths. The pride which is part of a woman’s nature will sustain and uphold her ofttimes when nothing else will. There are women--Heaven help them!--who have nothing left them but their womanly pride. Pure and cold as snow and hard as adamant, it stands like a glittering wall of ice between her and the world. That pride was all that Lillian Leigh had to lean upon now, in her hour of darkness. It was her rock and her defense in time of trouble.

“I shall be married soon,” observed Rosamond, complacently, yet glancing furtively about her with frightened eyes; “for if I remain much longer in this house I shall die of fright. Of course Jack has but small means, but I have money enough for us both, and--”

“And he will consent to live upon your money?” burst forth Lillian, impetuously. “Miss Raleigh, I could never respect a man who would do that!”

Miss Raleigh’s thin lip curled with a condescending smile.

“My dear Lillian, you have not been asked to respect Mr. Lyndon. And as for living upon my money--that question lies between ourselves solely and absolutely. Mr. Lyndon is not accountable to you, or _any_ of my servants, I hope!”

Lillian made no reply. The hot blood rushed to her white face in a surging flood; then it receded, leaving her pale as death.

“May I go now, Miss Raleigh?” she asked, wistfully. “See, the clock’s hands are pointing to one; and I am very tired.”

“Yes, go!” ungraciously. “I imagine that I shall not be disturbed again to-night. I must devise some plan to get rid of or outwit this ghostly visitant--to guard against its reappearance. I _must_ put a stop to it!”

She started as the audacious words passed her lips, her face took on a deathly pallor, and her eyes dilated with sudden horror. Surely that was a laugh--a low, sweet, mocking laugh which had fallen upon the silence as though defying her to do her worst. Rosamond fell back into the chair from which she had just arisen, and sat clutching wildly at its carved arms.

“Lillian, as surely as you live, that was Noisette’s voice--Noisette’s laugh. I remember it well, although she seldom laughed aloud. She was a grave, quiet, taciturn girl--one who had little to say, and was never demonstrative or merry. Yet I swear that was Noisette Duval who laughed then as though in derision. Don’t go to bed now, Lillian, for Heaven’s sake! I will not stay here alone now. No, I will retire, and you may go after I am asleep. I will take a sedative, and will be sound asleep in a short time.”

Utterly selfish, the cruel woman did not pause to reflect upon the terrors which Lillian was suffering. The poor girl was timid and nervous as any other woman would have been under the circumstances, and she longed to reach the privacy of her own chamber--longed intensely to be alone, to stare her sad future in the face. But the woman unfortunate enough to be employed by Rosamond Raleigh was allowed no time to weep over her own sorrows.

Rosamond hurriedly prepared herself for bed; then she went to an Indian cabinet which stood in all the glory of quaint carving in one corner of the room, and opening it, took a bottle from one of the shelves. The vial bore a suggestive label--two cross-bones surmounted by a grinning skull, and below, in large letters, “Chloral--_Poison!_”

“Oh, Miss Raleigh,” interposed Lillian, “surely you will not take that? It might kill you.”

“Nonsense, you little goose! I always take it when I am disturbed at night. It is the only thing that makes me sleep.”

She took a golden spoon from the cabinet and dropped a few drops of the chloral into some water, then hastily swallowing the dose, she returned the vial to the cabinet and retired for the night. Five minutes later she was wrapped in a heavy, sluggish slumber.

Free at last, Lillian turned the gas down to the faintest glimmer, and at last sought her own room. The fire had gone out, the lamp burned low. She went straight to bed and lay there all the rest of the night, her eyes wide open, while she tried to stare her future in the face. The pale gray light of dawn creeping in at the window found her still sleepless; but at last she sunk into an unquiet sleep which lasted until the dressing-bell rang.

She awoke with a start, and, pale and spiritless, arose and made her simple toilet. With light footsteps she entered Miss Raleigh’s sleeping-room. Rosamond lay sleeping soundly, so Lillian dropped the shades over the windows, extinguished the gas, and softly withdrew.

One day--only one brief day, and then she must give Richard Raleigh his answer. Her whole future hung trembling in the balance, and before the sun should set that night her decision must be made.

Coming down-stairs on her way to the conservatory to gather a bouquet for Rosamond’s boudoir, Lillian accidentally encountered the master of the house. His face looked pale and grave, and there was an air of preoccupation about the pompous millionaire which she had never observed before. To her amazement, at sight of her, Mr. Raleigh stopped short, and a smile from which she shrunk involuntarily crossed his lips.

“Ah, good-morning, Miss Leigh,” he said, pleasantly, unctuously. “How are you this fine morning? I am afraid that you are working too hard. You look pale--too pale, Lillian. I do not wish you to be overworked, and really the work is unsuited for you. We will find you something better--something better,” with a smile and a pat of the girl’s soft hand which he had taken in his own. “This occupation is entirely out of place,” resumed the millionaire, blandly; “this is no business for Gilbert Leigh’s daughter--no, indeed! It is a shame that you should hold a position of this kind in my household, and I mean to put an end to it.”

Utterly overwhelmed, Lillian could only bow and murmur something unintelligible in regard to his kindness, and then she withdrew her hand and hurried to the conservatory, feeling very uncomfortable and far from easy in her mind. Grafton Raleigh had never noticed her before, save in a chance encounter in the hall or some of the rooms, when the stiffest of bows would be all the notice ever vouchsafed by him to his daughter’s waiting-maid. Lillian did not like this sudden change of demeanor, and she hurriedly gathered her flowers and retreated up the stairs, with a vague terror creeping into her heart, a feeling that some new calamity was threatening her.

The breakfast hour in the handsome breakfast-room found Mrs. Raleigh, her husband and son, alone at the table.

“I wonder what keeps Rosamond so late?” observed Richard, turning over the pile of letters beside his plate.

His father frowned.

“That girl is getting altogether too indolent!” he observed. “And I do think she keeps that little maid of hers up half the night, Helen!”--turning swiftly to his wife at the head of the table, behind the silver urn. “I insist that you inquire into this matter. The girl is no common servant, remember, and she may astonish you some day.”

Mrs. Raleigh favored her husband with a long, comprehensive stare.

“Well, I declare,” she burst forth, indignantly, “wonders will never cease! My daughter’s waiting-maid must indeed be possessed of rare graces to have attracted the attention of the fastidious Grafton Raleigh. Rest assured--Ah, there comes Rosamond now! The poor child has had a bad night. I can see that at a glance.”

The door of the breakfast-room had swung slowly open, and Rosamond, in a pale-blue wrapper which made her pale face look even more death-like, glided into the room. She was wan and haggard, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. At sight of her, her mother’s face grew stern.

“Rosamond”--in a reproving voice--“you have been taking chloral again.”

Rosamond halted just within the door, which she closed behind her. She glanced into her mother’s face as she burst forth in a shrill treble:

“Yes, I have been taking it, and I shall be compelled to resort to it every night or never sleep again on earth if something is not done to relieve me of the visitations from which I suffer. Papa--mamma! it is the truth, so help me Heaven! I am haunted--haunted by the spirit of Noisette Duval. I am never safe from it. It comes when I am sad and when I am cheerful; it comes at night and at day; when I am alone and when Lillian is present! And, papa”--wringing her hands nervously--“I have concluded to ask--to beg of you--permission to have the round room closed up forever. Will you consent, papa?”

Mr. Raleigh sneered and frowned and objected, but he ended by being overruled. Before noon of that day half a dozen workmen were busily engaged in sealing up the pretty octagonal chamber. The door of communication between it and Rosamond’s sleeping-room was removed, the aperture closed, and the wall papered to correspond with the rest of the room. The door leading into the hall was also removed, and when the work was completed Rosamond congratulated herself upon having completely exorcised the spirit which so persistently haunted her.