The Haunted Chamber by The Duchess

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"How pale you are, Mrs. Talbot?" remarks Sir Adrian suddenly, wheeling
round to look at her more closely. "Has this damp old place really
affected your nerves? Come, let us go down again, and forget in the
sunshine that bloody deeds were ever committed here or elsewhere."

"I am nervous, I confess," responds Dora, in a low tone. "Yes, yes--let
us leave this terrible room forever."

"So be it," says Sir Adrian gayly. "For my part, I feel no desire to
ever re-enter it."

"It is very high art, I suppose," observes Ethel Villiers, glancing
round the walls. "Uncomfortable places always are. It would be quite
a treasure to Lady Betty Trefeld, who raves over the early Britons. It
seems rather thrown away upon us. Captain Ringwood, you look as if you
had been suddenly turned into stone. Let me pass, please."

"It was uncommonly friendly of Ringwood not to have let the door slam,
and so imprisoned us for life," says Sir Adrian, with a laugh. "I am
sure we owe him a debt of gratitude."

"I hope you'll all pay it," laughs Ringwood. "It will be a nice new
experience for you to give a creditor something for once. I never pay my
own debts; but that doesn't count. I feel sure you are all going to give
me something for my services as door-keeper."

"What shall I give you?" asks Ethel coquettishly.

"I'll tell you by and by," he replies, with such an expressive look that
for once the saucy girl has no answer ready, but, blushing crimson,
hurries past him down the stone stairs, where she waits at the bottom
for the others.

As Florence reaches the door she pauses and stoops to examine the lock.

"I wish," she says to Sir Adrian, a strange subdued excitement in her
tone, "you would remove this lock. Do."

"But why?" he asks, impressed in spite of himself, by her manner.

"I hardly know myself; it is a fancy--an unaccountable one, perhaps--but
still a powerful one. Do be guided by me, and have it removed."

"What--the fancy?" he asks, laughing.

"No--the lock. Humor me in this," she pleads earnestly, far more
earnestly than the occasion seems to warrant. "Call it a silly
presentiment, if you like, but I honestly think that lock will work you
evil some day. Therefore it is that I ask you to do away with it."

"You ask me?" he queries.

"Yes, if only to please me--for my sake."

She has evidently forgotten her late distrust of him, for she speaks now
in the old sweet tone, and with tears in her eyes. Sir Adrian flushes
warmly.

"For your sake," he whispers. "What is there I would not do, if thus
requested?"

A bitter sneer contracts Arthur Dynecourt's lips as he listens to the
first part of this conversation and guesses at the latter half. He notes
correctly the kindling of their eyes, the quick breath that comes and
goes like happy sighs from the breast of Florence. He hears the whisper,
sees the warm blush, and glances expressively at Dora. Meeting her eyes
he says his finger on his lips to caution her to silence, and then, when
passing by her, whispers:

"Meet me in half an hour in the lower gallery."

Bowing her acquiescence in this arrangement, fearing indeed to refuse,
Dora follows the others from the haunted chamber.

At the foot of the small stone staircase--before they go through the
first iron-bound door that leads to the corridor without--they find
Ethel Villiers awaiting them. She had been looking round her in the
dimly lighted stone passage, and has discovered another door fixed
mysteriously in a corner, that had excited her curiosity.

"Where does this lead to, Sir Adrian?" she asks now, pointing to it.

"Oh, that is an old door connected with another passage that leads by
a dark and wearying staircase to the servants' corridor beneath! I am
afraid you won't be able to open it, as it is rusty with age and disuse.
The servants would as soon think of coming up here as they would of
making an appointment with the Evil One; so it has not been opened for
years."

"Perhaps I can manage it," says Arthur Dynecourt, trying with all his
might to force the ancient lock to yield to him. At length his efforts
are crowned with success; the door flies creakingly open, and a cloud of
dust uprising covers them like a mist.

"Ah!" exclaims Ethel, recoiling; but Arthur, stooping forward, carefully
examines the dark staircase that lies before him wrapped in impenetrable
gloom. Spider-nets have been drawn from wall to wall and hang in dusky
clouds from the low ceiling; a faint, stale, stifling smell greets his
nostrils, yet he lingers there and looks carefully around him.

"You'll fall into it, if you don't mind," remarks Captain Ringwood. "One
would think uncanny spots had an unwholesome attraction for you."

Ringwood, ever since the memorable night in the smoking-room, when Sir
Adrian was so near being killed, has looked askance at Arthur Dynecourt,
and, when taking the trouble to address him at all, has been either
sharp or pointed in his remarks. Arthur, contenting himself with a
scowl at him, closes the little door again, and turns away from it.

"At night," says Sir Adrian, in an amused tone, "the servants, passing
by the door below that leads up to this one, run by it as though they
fear some ghostly ancestors of mine, descending from the haunted
chamber, will pounce out upon them with their heads under their arms,
or in some equally unpleasant position. You know the door, don't you,
Arthur--the second from the turning?"

"No," replies Arthur, with his false smile, "I do not; nor, indeed,
do I care to know it. I firmly believe I should run past it too after
nightfall, unless well protected."

"That looks as if you had an evil conscience," says Ringwood carelessly,
but none the less purposely.

"It looks more as if I were a coward, I think," retorts Arthur,
laughing, but shooting an angry glance at the gallant captain as he
speaks.

"Well, what does the immortal William say?" returns Ringwood coolly.
"'Conscience doth make cowards of us all!'"

"You have a sharp wit, sir," says Arthur, with apparent lightness, but
pale with passion.

"I say, look here," breaks in Sir Adrian hastily, pulling out his watch;
"it must be nearly time for tea. By Jove, quite half past four, and we
know what Lady FitzAlmont will say to us if we keep her deprived of her
favorite beverage for even five minutes. Come, let us run, or
destruction will light upon our heads."

So saying, he leads the way, and soon they leave the haunted chamber and
all its gloomy associations far behind them.

CHAPTER VII.

Reluctantly, yet with a certain amount of curiosity to know what it is
he may wish to say to her, Dora wends her way to the gallery to keep her
appointment with Arthur. Pacing to and fro beneath the searching eyes
of the gaunt cavaliers and haughty dames that gleam down upon him from
their canvases upon the walls, Dynecourt impatiently awaits her coming.

"Ah, you are late!" he exclaims as she approaches. There is a tone of
authority about him that dismays her.

"Not very, I think," she responds pleasantly, deeming conciliatory
measures the best. "Why did you not come to the library? We all missed
you so much at tea!"

"No doubt," he replies sarcastically. "I can well fancy the
disappointment my absence caused; the blank looks and regretful speeches
that marked my defection. Pshaw--let you and me at least be honest to
each other! Did Florence, think you, shed tears because of my
non-coming?"

This mood of his is so strange to her that, in spite of the natural
false smoothness that belongs to her, it renders her dumb.

"Look here," he goes on savagely, "I have seen enough to-day up in that
accursed room above--that haunted chamber--to show me our game is not
yet won."

"Our game--what game?" asks Dora, with a foolish attempt at
misconception.

He laughs aloud--a wild, unpleasant, scornful laugh, that makes her
cheek turn pale. Its mirth, she tells herself, is demoniacal.

"You would get out of it now, would you?" he says. "It is too late, I
tell you. You have gone some way with me, you must go the rest. I want
your help, and you want mine. Will you draw back now, when the prize is
half won, when a little more labor will place it within your grasp?"

"But there must be no violence," she gasps; "no attempt at--"

"What is it you would say?" he interrupts stonily. "Collect yourself;
you surely do not know what you are hinting at. Violence! what do you
mean by that?"

"I hardly know," she returns, trembling. "It was your look, your tone,
I think, that frightened me."

"Put your nerves in your pocket for the future," he exclaims coarsely;
"they are not wanted where I am. Now to business. You want to marry Sir
Adrian, as I understand, whether his desire lies in the same direction
or not?"

At this plain speaking the dainty little lady winces openly.

"My own opinion is that his desire does not run in your direction,"
continues Arthur remorselessly. "We both know where his heart would
gladly find its home, where he would seek a bride to place here in this
grand old castle, but I will frustrate that hope if I die for it."

He grinds his teeth as he says this, and looks with fierce defiant eyes
at the long rows of his ancestors that line the walls.

"She would gladly see her proud fair face looking down upon me from
amidst this goodly company," he goes on, apostrophizing the absent
Florence. "But that shall never be. I have sworn it; unless--I am her
husband--unless--I am her husband!"

More slowly, more thoughtfully he repeats this last phrase, until Dora,
affrighted by the sudden change that has disfigured his face, speaks to
him to distract his attention.

"You have brought me here to--" she ventures timidly.

"Ay, to tell you what is on my mind. I have said you want to marry
Adrian; I mean to marry Florence Delmaine. To-day I disliked certain
symptoms I saw, that led me to believe that my own machinations have not
been as successful as I could have wished. Before going in for stronger
measures, there is one more card that I will play. I have written you a
note. Here it is, take it"--handing her a letter folded in the
cocked-hat fashion.

"What am I to do with this?" asks Dora nervously.

"Read it. It is addressed to yourself. You will see I have copied
Adrian's handwriting as closely as possible, and have put his initials
A.D. at the end. And yet"--with a diabolical smile--"it is no forgery
either, as A.D. are my initials also."

Opening the note with trembling fingers, Dora reads aloud as follows:

"Can you--will you meet me to-morrow at four o'clock in the lime-walk?
I have been cold to you perhaps, but have I not had cause? You think my
slight attentions to another betoken a decrease in my love for you, but
in this, dearest, you are mistaken. I am yours heart and soul. For the
present I dare not declare myself, for the reasons you already know, and
for the same reasons am bound to keep up a seeming friendliness with
some I would gladly break with altogether. But I am happy only with you,
and happy too in the thought that our hearts beat as one. Yours
forever, A.D."

Dora, having finished reading the letter, glances at him uneasily.

"And--what is the meaning of this letter? What is it written for? What
am I to do with it?" she stammers, beating the precious missive against
the palm of her hand, as though in loathing of it.

"You will show it to her. You will speak of it as a love-letter written
to you by Adrian. You will consult her as to whether it be wise or
prudent to accede to his proposal to meet you alone in the lime-walk.
You will, in fact, put out all your powers of deception, which"--with a
sneering smile--"are great, and so compel her to believe the letter is
from him to you."

"But--" falters Dora.

"There shall be no 'but' in the matter. You have entered into this
affair with me, and you shall pursue it to the end. If you fail me, I
shall betray your share in it--more than your share--and paint you in
such colors as will shut the doors of society to you. You understand
now, do you?"

"Go on," says Dora, with colorless lips.

"Ah, I have touched the right chord at last, have I? Society, your idol,
you dare not brave! Well, to continue, you will also tell her, in your
own sweet innocent way"--with another sneer that makes her quiver with
fear and rage--"to account for Adrian's decided and almost lover-like
attentions to her in the room we visited, that you had had a lovers'
quarrel with him some time before, earlier in the day; that, in his fit
of pique, he had sought to be revenged upon you, and soothe his slighted
feelings by feigning a sudden interest in her. You follow me?"

"Yes," replies the submissive Dora. Alas, how sincerely she now wishes
she had never entered into this hateful intrigue!

"Then, when you have carefully sown these lies in her heart, and seen
her proud face darken and quiver with pain beneath your words"--oh, how
his own evil face glows with unholy satisfaction as he sees the picture
he has just drawn stand out clear before his eyes!--"you will affect to
be driven by compunction into granting Sir Adrian a supposed request,
you will don your hat and cloak, and go down to the lime-walk to
encounter--me. If I am any judge of character, that girl, so haughty to
all the world, will lower her pride for her crushed love's sake, and
will follow you, to madden herself with your meeting with the man she
loves. To her, I shall on this occasion represent Sir Adrian. Are you
listening?"

She is indeed--listening with all her might to the master mind that has
her in thrall.

"You will remember not to start when you meet me," he continues, issuing
his commands with insolent assumption of authority over the dainty Dora,
who, up to this, has been accustomed to rule it over others in her
particular sphere, and who now chafes and writhes beneath the sense of
slavery that is oppressing her. "You will meet me calmly, oblivious of
the fact that I shall be clad in my cousin's light overcoat, the one of
which Miss Delmaine was graciously pleased to say she approved yesterday
morning."

His eyes light again with a revengeful fire as he calls to mind the
slight praise Florence had bestowed in a very casual fashion on this
coat. Every smile, every kindly word addressed by this girl to his
cousin, is treasured up by him and dwelt upon in secret, to the terrible
strengthening of the purpose he has in view.

"But if you should be seen--be marked," hesitates Dora faintly.

"Pshaw--am I one to lay my plans so clumsily as to court discovery on
even the minutest point?" he interrupts impatiently. "When you meet me
you will--but enough of this; I shall be there to meet you in the
lime-walk, and after that you will take your cue from me."

"That is all you have to say?" asks Dora, anxious to quit his hated
presence.

"For the present--yes. Follow my instructions to the letter, or dread
the consequences. Any blunder in the performance of this arrangement I
shall lay to your charge."

"You threaten, sir!" she exclaims angrily, though she trembles.

"Let it be your care to see that I do not carry out my threats," he
retorts, with an insolent shrug.

The next day, directly after luncheon, as Florence is sitting in her
own room, touching up an unfinished water-color sketch of part of the
grounds round the castle--which have, alas, grown only too dear to
her!--Dora enters her room. It is an embarrassed and significantly
smiling Dora that trips up to her, and says with pretty hesitation in
her tone--

"Dearest Florence, I want your advice about something."

"Mine?" exclaims Florence, laying down her brush, and looking, as she
feels, astonished. As a rule, the gentle Dora does not seek for wisdom
from her friends.

"Yes, dear, if you can spare me the time. Just five minutes will do, and
then you can return to your charming sketch. Oh"--glancing at it--"how
exactly like it is--so perfect; what a sunset, and what firs! One could
imagine one's self in the Fairies' Glen by just looking at it."

"It is not the Fairies' Glen at all; it is that bit down by Gough's
farm," says Florence coldly. Of late she has not been so blind to Dora's
artificialness as she used to be.

"Ah, so it is!" agrees Dora airily, not in the least discomposed at her
mistake. "And so like it too. You are a genius, dearest, you are really,
and might make your fortune, only that you have one made already for
you, fortunate girl!"

"You want my advice," suggests Florence quietly.

"Ah, true; and about something important too!" She throws into her whole
air so much coquetry mingled with assumed bashfulness that Florence
knows by instinct that the "something" has Sir Adrian for its theme, and
she grows pale and miserable accordingly.

"Let me hear it then," she urges, leaning back with a weary sigh.

"I have just received this letter," says Mrs. Talbot, taking from her
pocket the letter Arthur had given her, and holding it out to Florence,
"and I want to know how I shall answer it. Would you--would you honestly
advise me, Flo, to go and meet him as he desires?"

"As who desires?"

"Ah, true; you do not know, of course! I am so selfishly full of myself
and my own concerns, that I seem to think every one else must be full
of them too. Forgive me, dearest, and read his sweet little letter, will
you?"

"Of whom are you speaking--to whose letter do you refer?" asks Florence,
a little sharply, in the agony of her heart.

"Florence! Whose letter would I call 'sweet' except Sir Adrian's?"
answers her cousin, with gentle reproach.

"But it is meant for you, not for me," says Miss Delmaine, holding the
letter in her hand, and glancing at it with great distaste. "He probably
intended no other eyes but yours to look upon it."

"But I must obtain advice from some one, and who so natural to expect it
from as you, my nearest relative? If, however"--putting her handkerchief
to her eyes--"you object to help me, Florence, or if it distresses you
to read--"

"Distresses me?" interrupts Florence haughtily. "Why should it distress
me? If you have no objection to my reading your--lover's--letter, why
should I hesitate about doing so? Pray sit down while I run through it."

Dora having seated herself, Florence hastily reads the false note from
beginning to end. Her heart beats furiously as she does so, and her
color comes and goes; but her voice is quite steady when she speaks
again.

"Well," she says, putting the paper from her as though heartily glad
to be rid of it, "it seems that Sir Adrian wishes to speak to you on
some subject interesting to you and him alone, and that he has chosen
the privacy of the lime-walk as the spot in which to hold your
_tete-a-tete_. It is quite a simple affair, is it not? Though really,
why he could not arrange to talk privately to you in some room in the
castle, which is surely large enough for the purpose, I can not
understand."

"Dear Sir Adrian is so romantic," says Dora coyly.

"Is he?" responds her cousin dryly. "He has always seemed to me the
sanest of men. Well, on what matter do you wish to consult me?"

"Dear Florence, how terribly prosaic and unsympathetic you are to-day,"
says Dora reproachfully; "and I came to you so sure of offers of love
and friendship! I want you to tell me if you think I ought to meet him
or not."

"Why not?"

"I don't know"--with a little simper. "Is it perhaps humoring him too
much? I have always dreaded letting a man imagine I cared for him,
unless fully, utterly, assured of his affection for me."

Florence colors again, and then grows deadly pale, as this poisoned barb
pierces her bosom.

"I should think," she says slowly, "after reading the letter you have
just shown me, you ought to feel assured."

"You believe I ought, really?"--with a fine show of eagerness. "Now, you
are not saying this to please me--to gratify me?"

"I should not please or gratify any one at the expense of truth."

"No, of course not. You are such a high-principled girl, so different
from many others. Then you think I might go and meet him this evening
without sacrificing my dignity in any way?"

"Certainly."

"Oh, I'm so glad," exclaimed little Mrs. Talbot rapturously, nodding her
"honorable" head with a beaming smile, "because I do so want to meet
him, dear fellow! And I value your opinion, Flo, more highly than that
of any other friend I possess. You are so solid, so thoughtful--such a
dear thing altogether."

Florence takes no heed of this rodomontade, but sits quite still, with
downcast eyes, tapping the small table near her with the tips of her
slender fingers in a meditative fashion.

"The fact is," continues Dora, who is watching her closely, "I may
as well let you into a little secret. Yesterday Sir Adrian and I had
a tiny, oh, such a tiny little dispute, all about nothing, I assure
you"--with a gay laugh--"but to us it seemed quite important. He said he
was jealous of me. Now just fancy that, Flo; jealous of poor little me!"

"It is quite possible; you are pretty--most men admire you," Florence
remarks coldly, still without raising her eyes.

"Ah, you flatter me, naughty girl! Well, silly as it sounds, he actually
was jealous, and really gave me quite a scolding. It brought tears to my
eyes, it upset me so. So, to tell the truth, we parted rather bad
friends; and, to be revenged on me, I suppose, he rather neglected me
for the remainder of the day."

Again Florence is silent, though her tormentor plainly waits for a lead
from her before going on.

"You must have remarked," she continues presently, "how cold and
reserved he was toward me when we were all together in that dreadful
haunted chamber." Here she really shudders, in spite of herself. The
cruel eyes of Arthur Dynecourt seem to be on her again, as they were in
that ghostly room.

"I remarked nothing," responds Florence icily.

"No--really? Well, he was. Why, my dear Florence, you must have seen how
he singled you out to be attentive to you, just to show me how offended
he was."

"He did not seem offended with any one, and I thought him in
particularly good spirits," replies Florence calmly.

Dora turns a delicate pink.

"Dear Adrian is such an excellent actor," she says sweetly, "and so
proud; he will disguise his feelings, however keen they may be, from
the knowledge of any one, no matter what the effort may cost him. Well,
dearest, and so you positively advise me to keep this appointment with
him?"

"I advise nothing. I merely say that I see nothing objectionable in
your walking up and down the lime-walk with your host."

"How clearly you put it! Well, adieu, darling, for the present, and
thank you a thousand times for all the time you have wasted on me. I
assure you I am not worth it"--kissing her hand brightly.

For once she speaks the truth; she is not indeed worth one moment of the
time Florence has been compelled to expend upon her; yet, when she has
tripped out of the room, seemingly as free from guile as a light-hearted
child, Miss Delmaine's thoughts still follow her, even against her
inclination.

She has gone to meet him; no doubt to interchange tender words and vows
with him; to forgive, to be forgiven, about some sweet bit of lover's
folly, the dearer for its very foolishness. She listens for her
footsteps as she returns along the corridor, dressed no doubt in her
prettiest gown, decked out to make herself fair in his eyes.

An overwhelming desire to see how she has robed herself on this
particular occasion induces Florence to go to the door and look after
her as she descends the stairs. She just catches a glimpse of Dora as
she turns the corner, and sees, to her surprise, that she is by no means
daintily attired, but has thrown a plain dark water-proof over her
dress, as though to hide it. Slightly surprised at this, Florence
ponders it, and finally comes to the bitter conclusion that Dora is so
sure of his devotion that she knows it is not necessary for her to
bedeck herself in finery to please him. In his eyes of course she is
lovely in any toilet.

Soon, soon she will be with him. How will they greet each other? Will he
look into Dora's eyes as he used to look into hers not so very long ago?
Arthur Dynecourt read her aright when he foresaw that she would be
unable to repress the desire to follow Dora, and see for herself the
meeting between her and Sir Adrian.

Hastily putting on a large Rubens hat, and twisting a soft piece of
black lace round her neck, she runs down-stairs and, taking a different
direction from that she knows Dora most likely pursued, she arrives by
a side path at the lime-walk almost as soon as her cousin.

Afraid to venture too near, she obtains a view of the walk from a high
position framed in by rhododendrons. Yes, now she can see Dora, and now
she can see too, the man who comes eagerly to meet her. His face is
slightly turned away from her, but the tall figure clad in the loose
light overcoat is not to be mistaken. He advances quickly, and meets
Dora with both hands outstretched. She appears to draw back a little,
and then he seizes her hands, and, stooping, covers them with kisses.

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