"Don't be afraid, I'll take care of the ghosts. We are all right." After a cup of tea and a bit of toast, Jessie repaired to her chamber on the second floor and picked up some trifle she was embroidering, to beguile the time of waiting. Mabel and George would get in about nine, when they were to relate the day's doings around a good warm supper. Katie was to follow and sit with her mistress, after she had done some righting up down stairs. Mike was bent upon routing an army of rats in the barn. Mrs. Lawrence had retired to her room with a nervous headache. The high winds from the sea had lulled, and for once the house was utterly quiet—so quiet that the stillness became oppressive. Meanwhile the young girl sat in her bower of luxury, softly humming a favorite air, and very happy in thoughts of her approaching marriage. While deep in her smiling reverie, a stealthy footstep distinctly sounded outside her door. Raising her head, she had not time to feel a sensation of real fear, when cautiously her doorknob was turned and a head intruded itself which struck her as dumb as though Medusa had appeared, and drove the life-blood in a frozen current to her head. [pg 31] [pg 31] The face was ghastly, the hair black and curling upon high, narrow shoulders, the figure slight and spare, and a pair of restless black eyes were glittering swiftly and cunningly around the room. "Hist!" he said to the horror-stricken girl, softly closing the door and turning the key; and if Jessie had a distinct thought in that awful moment, it was of thankfulness that the winter dampness had so warped the door that the key would not fairly catch in the lock,—a bit of repairing thus far overlooked in the wedding preparations. "Don't be frightened," he continued, in his sibilant whisper; "you will take care of me, won't you?" But the girl's eyes only riveted themselves in more hopeless, helpless terror upon the apparition. Every muscle seemed paralyzed. He drew a chair to the open grate as if the fire were most welcome. "You see," he said in his quaint, soft voice, "if they track me here they may hang me, and they would be wrong—all wrong. I did not intend to kill her, but she would not hold still." At this he gave a
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