CHAPTER XIX.

BESSIE SEES THE GAME.

“Rosamond! For the love of Heaven, _what is it?_”

Mrs. Vernon stood like one turned to stone; her big dark eyes, dilated with horror, fixed wildly upon the apparition.

“What--is--it?” she gasped once more, in a faltering whisper.

No answer--no answer. Rosamond stood, wringing her hands in horror and affright, screaming like a lunatic. One more glance, and Bessie Vernon turned and fled, with Rosamond close at her heels--fled from the room and down the stairs, bursting into the library, where Grafton Raleigh sat deeply engrossed in the contents of a formidable-looking document before him. Bursting into the room, they sunk down upon a low couch, too overcome by terror to utter a word. “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” Grafton Raleigh glanced up with a start of surprise at the interruption--this unceremonious bursting in upon his privacy--and arose to his feet, his face dark with displeasure.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Vernon”--in a cold tone. “Why, what is the matter with my daughter? Rosamond, are you mad?”

“Mad?” with a hysterical outburst. “No, no! But I shall be mad indeed before long if that dreadful apparition continues to appear. Oh, papa, listen! You had the round room closed up, and no one can get in or out of it, yet I saw just now in my room, standing just where the communicating door used to be, the apparition--the _something_ of which I have been telling you so long. And Bessie saw it also.”

“It is true, Mr. Raleigh, and no mistake about it!” corroborated Mrs. Vernon. “I saw it just as certainly and distinctly as I ever saw anything in my life--just as plainly as I see you at this moment! And--worse than all else--it--”

“Yes, yes, papa!” interrupted Rosamond, trembling like a leaf and weeping copiously--“something dreadful occurred! Something which has never happened before! It--it--_spoke_!”

“Rosamond, now really this is going a little too far. Bessie, I had imagined you possessed a little common sense, if Rosamond is deficient. Do you mean to assert that you too saw an apparition in this house in broad daylight, and that it--the thing--_spoke_ intelligibly?”

“Mr. Raleigh, it did!” This from Bessie.

“Papa, it really did!” repeated Rosamond, wildly. “It spoke two words--one was ‘Beware!’ the other was ‘Lenore!’ We were speaking of Lenore at the time the apparition appeared--Bessie and I.”

“Lenore? You must have misunderstood, daughter. I--I--can’t believe it.”

“Papa”--desperately--“it is the truth! And we were not mistaken; we could not be. I suppose it is gone now, and if you were to go up to my room you would not find it. But I swear to you there is no mistake or exaggeration in our story; it is all just as we have told you. I wish you could see for yourself; and then, I suppose, you would believe.”

“I will take possession of your room,” he said, decidedly, “and will remain there for a time. Each day hereafter I will make it my business to spend a portion of the day there to watch, and perhaps I shall be able to get at the root of the mystery.”

“But it only appears to _me_!” sobbed Rosamond, wringing her hands again and again. “It seems to have an especial spite against me--though if any one is with me in the room they always see it too. Papa, papa! I can not stay in this house. Let me go away for a time at least--let me go home with Bessie for a few days. I will die if I am forced to remain here, liable to meet that horrible thing and--and--hear it speak!”

And poor Rosamond sobbed aloud in uncontrollable terror and nervous fear.

“Yes, come home with me, Rosie!” intervened Mrs. Vernon, her face lighting up at once. “We will have a pleasant time; and I am expecting some guests from New York, and I really need an attraction like you, Rosie. And besides”--in a low tone--“old Arbuthnot, the millionaire, is to be with us for a few days. Fancy the opportunity for _you_, Rosamond, to be shut up in the same house with him for perhaps a whole week! They _do_ say that he is as rich as Crœsus! _Do_ come home with me, dear!”

So it was finally arranged, and then Rosamond went to inform her mother and order a trunk packed; for even one week’s stay necessitated much baggage. Upstairs to her mother’s room she made her way, passing her own door with a perceptible shudder. She found Mrs. Raleigh lounging before the fire in a low chair, her hands folded listlessly in her lap. In a few moments the strange story was told, and Rosamond announced her intended departure. Mrs. Raleigh, gazing upon her daughter’s pale, worn face and great frightened eyes with dark circles beneath, and thinking of her desperate resort to chloral or some such drug, was only too glad to consent. But she sighed sadly.

“I see but little for which to live; small hope in life!” she cried, in a shrill voice; “my son, my boy, my idol to be sacrificed to a foolish whim of your father’s. Rosamond, last night when your father told us that horrible story--of prospective poverty and disgrace--I thought then that all life was ended for me. But now you are doomed. I am convinced that your intellect is giving way. You are a perfect wreck of what you were a few weeks ago. You are beginning to look old and faded. Yes, go to Bessie Vernon’s if you like; it would kill you to remain here, haunted as you are. I have never believed in such things before in my life. I have always looked upon such tales as foolish superstitions, or falsehoods got up for the purpose of frightening timid people, and altogether unworthy a sensible person’s notice. But I declare, Rosamond, it is exceedingly strange and incomprehensible, to say the least. I always told you to be more careful in your treatment of Noisette. You were unwarrantably harsh and cruel, and you are being punished for it now. But what puzzles me most is that you and Bess should have heard the apparition speak the name of Lenore. What does it, can it, mean?”

“Mamma, do you remember when she--Noisette--lay dead, and I--I--saw the resemblance between her and Lenore Van Alstyne? Mamma, I tell you I have heard something to-day which proves to me that she is not the immaculate angel that people think her. I will tell you later on all about it. But just now I am only anxious to get away. I shall be insane if I stay here much longer and suffer from this strange, this awful visitation. Where is Lillian? I want a trunk packed at once.”

Mrs. Raleigh flashed angrily about.

“Lillian, indeed!” she panted, wrathfully. “I hope that you do not for a moment believe that you can retain my Lady Leigh as a waiting-maid? Why, your fastidious brother is going to commit matrimonial suicide in a few weeks, I believe! Rosamond, we are a ruined family!”

Rosamond’s eyes flashed with ominous fire. “Has she left the house?” she demanded, fiercely.

Mrs. Raleigh shook her head.

“She is shut up in her own room. Your father informed her that the whole house is at her disposal, and that she can do as she pleases. It pleased her majesty to lock herself up in her own room, and stay there. I wish”--savagely--“that she would never come out alive!”

“Amen!” responded Miss Raleigh, fervently. “Well, I suppose I can manage with the packing somehow; but I can not go into that room alone, mamma!”

At this obvious hint Mrs. Raleigh arose and accompanied her daughter to her luxurious sleeping-room. She was quite pale, and trembled with excitement. But they found the room unoccupied by human or ghostly visitant, and just as Rosamond had left it, save for one particular: Upon a white fur rug which lay near the spot where the apparition had been standing, there was a round red spot of something which looked like fresh blood. Trembling visibly, Mrs. Raleigh stooped to examine it; she drew back with a frightened cry. There was nothing there.

“Rosamond!” in a husky whisper, “this house _is_ haunted. I will try to induce your father to put it into the market at once, for I declare I do not like to live in it. But come now, daughter, do not look so terrified. I will ring for my maid and have your trunk prepared. You will go home with Bessie, and amid her gay surroundings you will forget this unpleasant, uncomfortable affair.”

Rosamond’s face lighted up with a slow gleam of interest.

“And I will write a line to Jack at once,” she said, “and tell him of my departure, so that he will call on me at Bessie’s.”

Her mother frowned.

“If I were you I would give up that nonsense, Rosie,” she ventured, in a low, earnest tone. “I heard yesterday that old Arbuthnot is going to visit the Vernons. You have heard of him, Rosamond, the railroad king? What a triumph it would be to become Mrs. Arbuthnot!”

“And give up Jack? Never, mamma! I have never cared for any man before in my whole life!”

Mrs. Raleigh shut her lips tightly together and sighed dolorously.

“Both my children gone mad over pretty faces!” she ejaculated. “But I know Richard well enough to believe that he has some ulterior object in this affair which will be known to us later on. If that surmise be true--and I can not doubt it after what your father said last night--why, we can understand Richard’s seemingly unpardonable conduct. But you, good gracious, Rosamond, you have no sensible excuse for your folly, none in the world.”

Rosamond’s thin lips were compressed closely, and a dangerous gleam shone in her eyes.

“We will not discuss it now, mamma,” she made answer. “Wait until I come home again, though I do not know that the idea of returning to this house is a very lively one--at least, unless this supernatural visitation should cease. And now ring for Felice, and let me get ready. Bessie will be tired waiting.”

But down in the library where she had tarried, Bessie was occupying herself very much to her own satisfaction. Some one had summoned Mr. Raleigh from the room, and only waiting to place the document which had so engrossed him in a drawer, he arose and left the library.

As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Vernon crept swiftly over to the escritoire, and stealthily opening the drawer, drew forth the great yellow parchment with glaring red seals, and opened it hastily. The first words which met her eyes were these:

“And to my niece, Lillian Leigh, I give, devise, and bequeath all--”

Footsteps in the hall without, the turning of the door-knob. Bessie dropped the document back into the drawer, and closing it, turned to confront Richard Raleigh. He looked pale and handsome; but there was a triumphant smile upon his lips, a lurking devil in his dusky eyes. As they fell upon the lady he started.

“Ah, Mrs. Vernon,” bowing lowly; “delighted to see you.”

And the hand which took Bessie’s in its grasp closed down tightly upon her tiny fingers. “Mother has just informed me that Rosamond is to go to you for a few days,” he continued. “Now, my dear Mrs. Vernon, surely you will not shut a poor fellow out of your paradise? You will let me come sometimes?”

She laughed lightly.

“As many times as you please,” she returned. “I shall have some pretty ladies among my guests, and an escort is always welcome.”

Richard’s bold, black eyes sparkled.

“But,” she added, softly, “what is this rumor--oh, a little bird told me--about your own marriage?”

His dark face flushed.

“I have been caught in Cupid’s net!” he laughed, “and may as well cry out _mea culpa_ to that charge. Seriously, Bessie--you used to let me call you Bessie--I am intending to marry soon Miss Leigh. She is a poor girl, but lovely. Coming, father!” he added, as his father’s voice called his name.

Five minutes later Bessie Vernon was alone in the library once more, an odd smile upon her painted lips, her eyes shining like stars.

“Ah, ha! I see the game at last!” she muttered to herself. “How stupid not to have seen it before.”