“O! Papa,” lisped Cecilia, who had no inclination to acknowledge herself as coming under either of these denominations, “you know what strange noises are heard every night!”
“Creaking of doors, cracking of old timber, the wind whistling away in the chimneys!”
“Well, I confess,” said Cecilia, with a little affected laugh, “that delightful as the tower is on a summer’s day like this, I shall not care to wander much through its long echoing corridors on a dark winter’s night. Mr. Aumerle,” she continued, addressing Augustine, who was leaning on the stone parapet, and gazing down with an abstracted air, “you who know everything, do you know of no charm to lay the bad spirits that are said to haunt ancient houses?”
“I am afraid,” replied Augustine gravely, “that such spirits are wont to haunt new houses as well as old ones, and that it needs more knowledge than philosophy can teach to give us the power to lay them.”
Cecilia looked puzzled at the enigmatical reply, but before she had time to ask for a solution, Mabel interrupted the conversation by suddenly exclaiming, “Surely that is the Dashleigh’s carriage that has just turned the corner of the hill!”
“We have stayed long enough on this tower,” said the doctor, averting his eyes from the direction in which those of Mabel were turned; “let us descend to the court.”
His suggestion, which sounded like a command, was followed at once by his guests; poor Cecilia heaved a sigh at the thought that once she might have indulged a hope that the gay carriage with its dashing bays might be bound for Nettleby Tower. “After all that has happened,” she reflected sadly, “that is impossible now!”
The descent of the long winding stairs, whose steep, rude, age-worn steps were only dimly lighted by narrow slits cut here and there in the massive stone wall, required both caution and time. Ere Bardon, who was the last of the party, had emerged from the low-browed door which opened into the courtyard, the bridge across the moat had been crossed, and the Earl and Countess of Dashleigh were already exchanging kindly greetings with the foremost of the Aumerles.
The stern old doctor was more startled by the unexpected appearance at his threshold of visitors such as these, than he could have been by any apparition in his old haunted tower. Mingled feelings of surprise, shame, remorse, and gratified pride struggled together in his bosom, as his eye met that of the nobleman from whose house he had turned with emotions of such vindictive wrath—words of such fiery passion! Had Bardon’s newly recovered estate depended upon his making such an effort, the proud man could not have bowed his spirit to the humiliation of visiting the earl; and yet the nobleman had come to him,—to him who had so meanly, so cruelly avenged one slighting sentence accidentally overheard!
Dashleigh saw the surprise, the embarrassment written on the face of the haughty Bardon,—he felt the delicacy of his own position, and resolutely breaking through what would once have been the inseparable barrier of reserve, he advanced two or three steps towards the doctor, and while a painful flush mantled over his wasted features, frankly held out his hand. That hand was grasped—was wrung—but in silence; the proud man felt himself conquered; and from that hour the evil spirit of enmity between the two opponents was laid for ever!