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A week went by and Frank returned to Marston full of hope and definite intention. He had notified the Surrogate of the discovery of the real heirs to the Wakeham estate, and he had engaged workmen to put in order the old house in Flatbush against the arrival of the youthful claimants. All that there now remained to do was to induce the young ladies to leave the accursed walls within which they had so long immured themselves.
Edgar was awaiting him at the station, and together they walked up the street.
"Is it all right?" asked Frank. "Have you seen them daily?"
"Every day but to-day. You would hardly know Emma."
"And—and Hermione?"
"She shows her feelings less, but she is evidently happier than she has been for a year."
"And her health?"
"Is completely re-established."
"Have you kept your word? Have you talked of everything but what we propose to do?"
"And they? Have they said anything about leaving the house, or of going to Flatbush, or—or——"
"No; they have preserved as close a silence as ourselves. I imagine they do not think it proper to speak till we have spoken first."
"It may be; but I should have been pleased if you could have told me that Hermione had been seen walking outside the gate."
"You would?"
"Yes. I dread the struggle which I now see before me. It is the first step which costs, and I was in hopes she would have taken this in my absence."
"Yes, it would have prevented argument. But perhaps you will not have to argue. She may be merely waiting for the support of your arm."
"Whatever she is waiting for, she takes her first step down the street to-night. What a new world it will open before her!" And Frank unconsciously quickened his pace.
Edgar followed with a less impatient step but with fully as much determination. Pride was mingled with his love, and pride demanded that his future wife should not be held in any bonds forged by the obstinacy or the superstitious fears of a wayward sister.
They expected to see the girls at the windows, but they found the shutters closed and the curtains drawn. Indeed, the whole house had a funereal look which staggered Frank and made even Edgar stare in astonishment. "It was not like this yesterday," he declared. "Do they not expect you?"
"Yes, if my telegram was delivered."
"Let us see at once what is the matter."
It was Doris who came to the door. When her eyes fell upon the two young men, especially upon Frank, her whole countenance changed.
"Oh, Mr. Etheridge, is it you?" she cried. "I thought—I understood——" She did not say what, but her relieved manner made quite an impression on Frank, although it was, of course, impossible for him to suspect what a dangerous deed she had been contemplating at that very moment.
"Are the young ladies well?" he asked, in his haste to be relieved from his anxiety.
"Oh, yes, quite well," she admitted, somewhat mysteriously. "They are in there," she added, pointing to the parlor on the left.
Frank and Edgar looked at each other. They had always before this been received in the cheerful sitting-room.
"If something is not soon done to make Miss Hermione leave the house," Doris whispered passionately to Frank as she passed him, "there will be worse trouble here than there has ever been before."
"What do you mean?" he demanded, gliding swiftly after her and catching her by the arm just as she reached the back hall.
"Go in and see," said she, "and when you come out tell me what success you have had. For if you fail, then——"
"Then what——"
"Providence must interpose to help you."
She was looking straight at him, but that glance told him nothing. He thought her words strange and her conduct strange, but everything was strange in this house, and not having the key to her thoughts, the word Providence did not greatly startle him.
"I will see what I can do," said he, and returning to Edgar, who had remained standing by the parlor-door, he preceded him into that gloomy apartment.
The girls were both there, seated, as Frank perceived with a certain sinking of the heart, in the farthest and dimmest corner of this most forbidding place. Emma was looking towards them, but Hermione sat with downcast eyes and an air of discouragement about her Frank found it hard to behold unmoved.
"Hermione," said he, advancing into the middle of the room, "have you no welcome for me?"
Trembling with sudden feeling, she rose slowly to her feet; and her eyes lifted themselves painfully to his.
"Forgive me," she entreated, "I have had such a shock."
"Shock?"
"Yes. Look at my head! look at my hair!"
She bent forward; he hastened to her side and glanced at the rich locks towards which she pointed. As he did so, he recoiled in sudden awe and confusion. "What does it mean?" he asked. There were gray spots in those dusky tresses, spots which had never been there before.
"The fingers of a ghost have touched me," she whispered. "Wherever they fell, a mark has been left, and those marks sear my brain."
And then Frank noticed, with inward horror, that the spots were regular and ran in a distinct circle about her head.
"Hermione," he cried, "has your imagination carried you so far? Ghost? Do you believe in ghosts?"
"I believe in anything now ," she murmured.
Frightened by her shudders and dazed by words he found it impossible to treat lightly with those mysterious marks before him, Frank turned for relief to Emma, who had risen also and stood a few steps behind them, with her face bent downward though the Doctor pressed close at her side.
"Do you understand her?" said Frank.
With an effort Emma moved forward. "It has frightened me ," she whispered.
"What has? Let us hear all about it," demanded the Doctor, speaking for the first time.
Hermione gave him a wistful glance. "We are wretched girls," said she. "If you expected to relieve us from the curse, it is impossible; my father will not have it so."
"Your father!" quoth both of the young men, appalled not at the superstition thus evinced, but at the effect they saw it was likely to have upon her mind.
"Did you think you saw him ?" added Frank. "When? Where?"
"In the laboratory—last night. I did not see him but I felt him; felt him strike my head with his fingers and drag me back. It was worse than death! I shall never get over it."
"Tell me the particulars; explain the whole matter to me. Imagination plays us ghastly tricks sometimes. Were you alone? Was it late?"
"Why didn't I come here this morning?" cried Edgar.
"It was long after midnight. I had received your letter and could not sleep, so I went into the laboratory, as we often do, to walk. It was the first time I had been there since I was ill, and it made me tremble to cross its hated threshold, but I had a question to decide, and I thought I ought to decide it there. But I trembled, as I say, and my hand shook so as I opened the door that I was more disturbed than astonished when my light went suddenly out, leaving me in total darkness. As I was by this time inside the laboratory I did not turn back to relight my candle, for the breeze I presently felt blowing through the room convinced me that this would be idle, and that till the window was shut, which let in such a stream of air, any attempt to bring a light into the room would be attended by the same results. I therefore moved rapidly across the room to the window, and was about to close it when I was suddenly arrested, and my arms were paralyzed by the feeling of a presence in the room behind my back. It was so vivid, so clear to my thoughts, that I seemed to see it, though I did not turn from the window. It was that of an old man—my father's,—and the menace with which the arms were lifted froze the blood in my veins.
"I had merited it; I had been near to breaking his command. I had meditated, if I had not decided, upon a sudden breaking away from the bondage he had imposed upon me; I had been on the point of daring his curse, and now it was to fall upon me. I felt the justice of his presence and fell, as if stricken, on my knees.
"The silence that followed may have been short, and it may have been long. I was almost unconscious from fright, remorse, and apprehension. But when I did rouse and did summon courage to turn and crawl from the room, I was conscious of the thing following me, and would have screamed, but that I had no voice. Suddenly I gave a rush; but the moment I started forward I felt those fingers fall upon my head and draw me back, and when I did escape it was with a force that carried me beyond the door and then laid me senseless on the floor; for I am no longer strong, Mr. Etheridge, and the hatred of the dead is worse than that of the living."
"You had a dream, a fearful dream, and these marks prove its vividness," declared Edgar. "You must not let your life be ruined by any such fantasies."
"Oh, that it had been a dream," moaned Hermione, "but it was more than that, as we can prove."
"Prove?"
"Come to the laboratory," cried Emma, suddenly. "There is something we want to show you there; something which I saw early this morning when I went in to close the window Hermione did not shut."
The young men, startled, did not wait for a second bidding; they followed the two girls immediately up-stairs.
"No one has been up these stairs but Doris and ourselves since you went down them a week ago," declared Hermione, as they entered the laboratory. "Now look at the lid of the mahogany desk—my father's desk."
They all went over to it, and Emma, pointing, seemed to ask what they thought of it. They did not know what to think, for there on its even surface they beheld words written with the point of a finger in the thick dust which covered it; and the words were legible and ran thus:
"In your anger you swore to remain within these walls; in your remorse see that you keep that oath. Not for love, not for hatred, dare to cross the threshold, or I will denounce you in the grave where I shall be gone, and my curse shall be upon you."
"My father's words to me in the dreadful hour of his death," whispered Hermione. "You may remember them, Mr. Etheridge; they were in the letter I wrote you."
Frank did remember them quite well, and for a moment he, like Edgar, stood a little dazed and shaken by a mystery he could not immediately fathom. But only for a moment. He was too vigorous, and his determination was too great, for him to be daunted long by even an appearance of the supernatural. So leaping forward, with a bright laugh, he drew his hand across the menacing words, and, effacing them at once, cried with a confident look at Hermione:
"So will I erase them from your heart if you only will let me, Hermione."
But she pointed with an awful look at her hair.
"Can you take these spots out also? Till you can, do not expect me to follow the beck of any hand which would lead me to defy my father's curse by leaving this house."
At this declaration both men turned pale, and unconsciously moved towards each other with a single thought. Had they looked at the door, they would have seen the inquisitive face of Doris disappear towards the staircase, with that air of determination which only ends in action. But they only saw each other and the purpose which was slowly developing in each of their minds.
"Come, Hermione," urged Frank, "this is no place for you. If you are going to stay in this house, I am going to stay with you; but this room is prohibited; you shall never enter it again."
He did not know how truly he spoke.
"Come," said Edgar, in his turn, to Emma, "we have had all the horrors we want; now let us go down-stairs and have a little cheerful talk in the sitting-room."
And Emma yielded; but Hermione hung back.
"I dread to go down," said she; "this seems the only place in which I can say farewell."
But Frank was holding out his hand, and she gradually gave in to its seduction and followed him down-stairs into the sitting-room, which was fast growing dusky.
"Now," said he, without heeding Emma and the Doctor, who had retreated to one of the farther windows, "if you wish to say farewell, I will listen to you; but before you speak, hear what I have to say. In a certain box which came with me this day from New York, and which is now at Mr. Lothrop's, there lies a gown of snowy satin made with enough lace to hide any deficiencies it may have in size or fit. With this gown is a veil snowy as itself, and on the veil there lies a wreath of orange blossoms, while under the whole are piled garments after garments, chosen with loving care by the only sister I have in the world, for the one woman in that world I wish to make my wife. If you love me, Hermione, if you think my devotion a true one, fly from this nest of hideous memories and superstitious fears, and in that place where you are already expected, put on these garments I have brought you, and with them a crown of love, joy, and hope, which will mean a farewell, not to me, but to the old life forever."
But Hermione, swaying aside from him, cried: "I cannot, I cannot; the rafters would fall if I tried to pass the door."
"Then," said Frank, growing in height and glowing with purpose, "they shall fall first on me." And seizing her in his arms, he raised her to his breast and fled with her out of the room and out of the house, her wild shriek of mingled terror and love trailing faintly after them till he stopped on the farther side of the gate, which softly closed behind them.
Emma, who was taken as much by surprise as her sister had been, looked at the empty place where Hermione had so lately stood, and cowered low, as if the terrible loneliness of the house, now she was gone, crushed upon her like a weight. Then she seized Edgar by the hand and ran out also; and Edgar pulled the great door to behind them, and the Cavanagh mansion, for the first time in a year, was a shell without inmates, a body without soul.
They found Hermione standing in the dark shadows cast here in the street by the overhanging trees. Frank's arm was about her and she looked both dazed and pleased.
When she saw Emma she started.
"Oh, it releases you too," she cried; "that is happiness. I did not like to see you suffer for my sins." Then she drooped a little, then she looked up, and a burden seemed to roll away from her heart. "The rafters did not fall," she murmured, "and you, Frank, will keep all spectres away from me, won't you? He can never reach me when I am by your side."
"Never, never," was the glad reply. And Frank began to draw her gently up the street. "It is but a step," said he, "to Mr. Lothrop's; no one will ever notice that you are without a hat."
"But——"
"You are expected," he whispered. "You are never to go back into your old home again."
Again he did not know how truly he spoke.
"Emma, Emma," appealed Hermione, "shall I do this thing, without any preparation, any thought, anything but my love and gratitude to make it a true bridal?"
"Ah, Hermione, in making yourself happy, you make me so; therefore I am but a poor adviser."
"What, will you be married too, to-night, at the minister's house with me?"
"No, dear, but soon, very soon, as soon as you can give me a home to be married in."
"Then let us make her happy," cried Hermione. "It is the only reparation I can offer for all I have made her suffer."