"Have you written?" I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased.
"I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet tones.
I went on again with my letter.
"The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I am resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt."
As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from Miss Dunross.
Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in the deepening darkness, t hat her head had fallen on the back of the chair.
My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to her.
I had barely got to my feet, when some indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant.
Supporting myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable of advancing a step.
The effort to speak was the one effort that I could make.
"Are you ill?" I asked.
She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without raising her head.
"I am frightened," she said.
"What has frightened you?"
I heard her shudder in the darkness.
Instead of answering me, she whispered to herself:
"What am I to say to him?"
"Tell me what has frightened you?" I repeated.
"You know you may trust me with the truth."
She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange words:
"Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing for you."
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you."
"Can you see it?"
"No."
"Can you feel it?"
"Yes!"
"What is it like?"
"Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter."
"Has the window come open?"
"The window is close shut."
"And the door?"
"The door is shut also—as well as I can see.
Make sure of it for yourself.
Where are you?
What are you doing?"
I was looking toward the window.
As she spoke her last words, I was conscious of a change in that part of the room.
In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light shining; not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and starry radiance, a pale, unearthly light.
While I watched it, the starry radiance quivered as if some breath of air had stirred it.
When it was still again, there dawned on me through the unearthly luster the figure of a woman.
By fine and slow gradations, it became more and more distinct.
I knew the noble figure; I knew the sad and tender smile.
For the second time I stood in the presence of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt.
She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which she had worn on the memorable evening when we met on the bridge—in the dress in which she had first appeared to me, by the waterfall in Scotland.
The starry light shone round her like a halo.
She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she had looked when I saw the apparition of her in the summer-house.
She lifted her hand—not beckoning me to approach her, as before, but gently signing to me to remain where I stood.
I waited—feeling awe, but no fear.
My heart was all hers as I looked at her.