Wandering Ghosts

t had been hers ever since she could remember anything. She could not go away, for there were no relatives to whom she could have gone, and, besides, there seemed to be no reason

uld be over, and they might be married at last. And meanwhile their lives went on as before, since Sir Hugh had been a hopeless invalid during the las

Sir Hugh had been laid in the north vault beside his father. And at Christmastide Evelyn decked the great hall with holly and green boughs, and huge fires blazed on every hearth. Then the tenants were all bidden to a

t the table, but a faint colour came into Evelyn's transparent cheeks. But, said the grey-haired farmer, it was longe

himney-piece shook and slowly waved as if a cool breeze were blowing over them. But the men turned very pale, and many of them set down their glasses, but others let them fall upon the floor for fear. And looking into one another's faces, they were all smiling strangely, a dead smile, like dead Sir Hugh's. One cried out words in Irish, an

and his left hand clasped her right as they stared before them; and but for the shadows of her hair one might not have told their two faces apart. They listened long, but the cry came not aga

without words, he would rise from his seat, as if something moved him against his will, and he would go out into the rain or the sunshine to the north side of the chapel, and sit on t

ed, and their red lips were almost joined together. But as their eyes met, they grew wide and wild, so that the white showed in a ring all round the deep violet, and the

in his hand there was the key to the door; but he had not put it into the lock. Evelyn drew him away, shivering, for she had al

as he went with her. "I see it in my sleep, I see it when I am awak

wn to it." She was silent for a moment, and then she started violently and grasped his arm with a man's s

f shut, and he was not move

d all that day and that evening he scarcely spoke, thinking of it, always thinking,

's room in the tower, and sat down beside the great leathern e

fore he died? It must have been an awful secret-and yet, though you asked him, I fe

ead moved slowly

know," she answered slowly

Colonel Warburton's daughter, and my mother was Lady Ockram's sister, so that Gabri

now. I can

he leaned forward. But Nurse Macdonald's wrinkled lids dropped suddenly over her q

her. And the real clock on the wall solemnly ticked alone, checking off the seconds of the woman who was a hundred years old, and had

he thing in the north vault, and to open the winding-sheet, and see whether it had changed; and she held Nurse M

k lips drew back in a devilish grin, showing its sharp teeth. Evelyn stared at it, half fascinated by its ugliness. Then the creature suddenly put out one paw with all its claws spread, and spat at the girl, and all at once the g

ch-stick, whereupon its back went down and its tail shrunk, and it sidled back to its place on th

guess, nurse?" asked

the very thought should blast your life. For if I guess right, he meant that you shou

us that we ough

and to take the meat away. And if he told you that you should not marry, it was because he hoped you would; for of all men living or dead, Hug

ove each other," sai

sights seen long ago, and that rose in the grey

m a hundred years old. What has life given me? The beginning is fire; the end is a heap of ashes; an

sed again, and her head sank

e wind, and behind her on the stairs. And as she grew sick with fear of the frightful unknown evil to which her soul was bound, she felt a bodily something pressing her, and pushing her, and forcing her on,

the mattress with her hands, to keep from getting up and going to the chapel. It would have been easier if there had not been a way thither through the library, by a door which was never locked. It would b

hivered so that the bed shook, and then the horror went through her in a cold t