“Mere fear, I believe,” answered Bruce. “She has never struggled to overcome it, and now in this gloomy old place it has gained complete mastery over her reason.”
“The mere incident of her having been left alone on the lawn for a few minutes last night seems scarcely to account for my child’s terror,” observed Mr. Trevor. “Surely Vibert, thoughtless as he is, cannot have had the senseless cruelty to play on his sister’s timidity any practical joke.” The same idea had occurred, to Bruce.
“Vibert is capable of any folly,” thought the elder brother; but after the experience of the preceding evening, he did not put the thought into words.
“I shall keep my girl as close by my side as possible,” observed Mr. Trevor. “Perhaps this strange fit of melancholy may pass off; if not, I must arrange for her going to Grosvenor Square. Her departure would leave a sad blank in our little circle at Christmas-time, but my own gratification must not weigh in the balance against my child’s comfort and health.”
“Where is your faith,—where is your faith?” moaned poor Emmie, repeating to herself again and again her brother’s question, as she paced up and down her own apartment, wringing her hands. “Oh, miserable doubt and mistrust! I might once have met my enemy on the ground of duty, and by prayer and resolute effort have gained some strength to meet more serious trials; but I let my fears subdue me without a struggle to cast them off, and now I lie prostrate,—a helpless victim bound in their chains. Usefulness marred, peace destroyed, a horrible dread on my mind, a reproving conscience within my breast, I seem now unable even to pray! I have let go the Hand that would so gently have led me; darkness is thick around me; I cannot find my Heavenly Guide! I dread to keep silent, yet dare not speak. Oh, that horrible, blasphemous oath!”
But it is time that the reader should be made acquainted with the circumstances which led to Emmie’s present state of misery. We will therefore return to that point in the story where we left the maiden silently tracking in the darkness the steps of Jael up the dark and narrow stone stairs.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HAUNTED CHAMBER.
