The fear was contagious; Marie sank to the ground, trembling like a leaf, and, in her fall, dragged Mollie with her. There they lay, frightened, and with chattering teeth.
“Come, young ladies,” brusquely said the doctor, “there is nothing to be afraid of. Scared at a skeleton, eh? I thought you had more nerve,” to Mollie.
“But it was so sudden,” she gasped; “and it seems so terrible.”
“Well, there is nothing to fear,” as he assisted them to their feet.
“O Mollie! Let us go!” cried Marie.
“Stuff and nonsense!” broke in the doctor. “Let us fathom this mystery. We will go in.”
In the center of the chamber and on a high bier, covered with black velvet, which fell in great folds to the floor, lay a golden casket. It bore no ornamentation, save the beading of silver about its edges. Its top was of glass, and a wreath of the most exquisite flowers lay near the head. On the four corners of the great black pall were sprigs of immortelles, and at the head of the casket, a wreath of orange blossoms. The floor of the chamber was of slabs of white marble, skillfully laid and joined together.
At the side of the room, upon a low couch, lay the skeleton of a human being; the grinning skull was turned upon one side, with its yawning, eyeless sockets turned toward the casket in the center of the chamber.
The garments which had been worn in life, still clung about the form, and showed it to have been a man. Upon a small table, at the head of the couch, stood a bronze lamp, from which the oil had long since passed into vapor; a paper lay by its side, and at the foot of the couch stood an iron box.