appeal to the police, that Aventayle could make his way to the gate. The strangest stories were being exchanged by the people as to the fearful event, and the most distorted and improbable surmises seemed to receive the most favour. It would have been difficult indeed for the populace that stood before that gate to have imagined the true key to the mystery of the deed that had been done, but the wildness of some of the conjectures that were offered was extraordinary. One tale only need be mentioned, and this because its history is less mysterious than itself. It was distinctly affirmed by several of the crowd that the house was notoriously haunted, that the master who now lay dead had been the terror of the mountain region in which he had lived before coming to France, and that he had escaped to that country in the hope of avoiding the spectre of a woman who in early life had fallen a victim, first to his love and then to his hate. That he had fled in vain, and that having espoused a young and beautiful wife, he had compelled her to share his hours of despair, and to witness the approach of the spirit. That there was a winding stair in the house, constructed by the murderer to remind him of his castle in Scotland, and that it was up this stair that the spirit glided, at the hour at which the deed had been done, and fled down it shrieking, as the living victim, flying and praying for life, had done in the old castle. At length the poor wife, unable to bear such terrors, had fled to her home in England, but the murderer, though he had shut up the house, and endeavoured to leave it, had been compelled to return by the summons of the spirit, and, in madness, had at last died by his own hand. Those who may recall the device by which, when it was desired to exclude the domestics in Mr. Urquhart’s employ from the lower portion of the house, the girl Henderson effected that object by a terrifying narrative, have the key to the origin of the story which was freely circulated among the crowd, and to which the female part of it was by no means indisposed to lend belief.
Aventayle was admitted to the house, but was requested to remain in the apartment below, while an official note of the circumstances attending the supposed murder was being completed. But Hawkesley was informed of his having come in, and hastened down.
“It is too fearful to think of now,” said Hawkesley, holding his friend’s hand. “What shall I say to you for having entangled you in such a terrible business?”
“Not a word, but tell me whether I can be of any use.”
“I fear not, but stay. You went out to see Mrs. Lygon.”
“She knows all and has been taken home.”
“I know that, and you went away with Silvain, the lover of a girl who attends on Laura.”
“You know him then? He is to be trusted?”
“Perfectly.”
“He has given me a message for you.”
And in a few words, few, considering the excited condition of Aventayle, he conveyed to Hawkesley the information Silvain had given.
Brief as the story was, Hawkesley heard it with an impatience that increased from the moment he comprehended the fact that the letters had been rescued from Adair’s possession. But the excitement manifested by Hawkesley did not seem to be mixed with the gratification which Aventayle, who had formed his own idea as to the character of the letters, expected. On the contrary, Hawkesley compressed his lips, and paced the apartment hastily.
“I ought not to leave this place, Aventayle,” he said, abruptly, “and yet I must see Laura.”
“Is there such haste?”
“Yes—her impulse may lead her to—to do what will cause irreparable mischief—and yet to leave him, while the officers are making these perquisitions—I must go, however.”
“Surely, Hawkesley, you can write, or send such a message by me as will save that necessity?”
“That is true—and yet, unless you comprehend all—but I must not leave that poor, noble fellow in the hands of strangers. Aventayle, find Silvain again—that you can easily do—and make him take you to Mrs. Lygon’s lodgings. Say you came from me, and she will, I am sure, see you. But if she is actually too ill to see you, and nothing else will prevent it, speak to the girl, Henderson. She is to be trusted. This is the one message, the solemn charge from me. Do not destroy one line, as you value all that is dear to you in the world. Not one line—impress that on her, Aventayle, and say that I came from the dead man’s presence, released the dead man’s hand, that I might send her that charge.”
Silvain had mixed in the crowd, and with a certain scorn, as one who knew the history of the fable, listened to the fiction which has been mentioned.
“It is entirely untrue,” he said to a matron who had just finished her version of the story. “The man who lies dead in that house was a brave and noble man.”
No one contradicted him, for he spoke almost angrily. But as soon as he had, in obedience to a signal from Aventayle, joined the latter at the outside of the crowd, another matron remarked—
“Of course he will say so. It is his duty. He marries a girl who came from England, and knows the frightful secret.”
“She has seen the spectre,” affirmed another woman, half terrified at her own speech.
“My son wants a wife,” said a third, “but sooner than he should share his bed with a girl who has seen a foul sight like that, I would gladly dress him for his bed in the ground.”
Aventayle, under the guidance of Silvain, soon reached the house in which Mrs. Lygon had her apartments.
“I am sure that she cannot see you, sir,” was the reply of Henderson. “I hardly dare take the message, but I will venture, as you come from Mr. Hawkesley. At least I will knock.”
Mrs. Lygon could see no one—“would see no one,” had been the answer to Henderson.
And no inducement, not even Silvain’s support of the request, would induce the girl to go up again.
“At any other time,” said Henderson; “Sil-