"Oh, Miss Edie, I'se hope you'll 'scuse me. I couldn't watch for a spook to save my life. I'se gwine to bed as soon as it's dark, and cover up my head till mornin'."
"Very well," said Edith, quietly. "I'm going to sit up with mother to-night, and if it comes again, I'll see it."
"De good Lord keep you safe, Miss Edie," said Hannibal, tremblingly. "You'se know I'd die for you in a minit; but I'se couldn't wateh for a spook nohow," and Hannibal crept away, looking as if the very worst had now befallen them.
Edith was too weary and sad even to smile at the absurd superstition of her old servant, for with her practical, positive nature she could scarcely understand how even the most ignorant could harbor such delusions. She said to Laura, "Let me sleep till nine o'clock, and then I will watch till morning."
Laura did not waken her till ten.
After Edith had shaken off her lethargy, she said, "Why, Laura, you look ready to faint!"
With a despairing little cry, Laura threw herself on the floor, and buried her face in her sister's lap, sobbing:
"I am ready to faint—body and soul. Oh, Edie, Edie, what shall we do? Oh, that I were sure death was an eternal sleep, as some say! How gladly I would close my eyes to-night and never wish to open them again! My heart is ashes, and my hope is dead. And yet I am afraid to die, and more afraid to live. Ever since—Zell—went—the future has been—a terror to me. Edith," she continued, after a moment, in a low voice, that trembled and was full of dread, "Zell has not written—the silence of the grave seems to have swallowed her. He has not married her!" and an agony of grief convulsed Laura's slight frame.
Edith's eyes grew hard and tearless, and she said sternly, "It were better the grave had swallowed her than such a gulf of infamy."
Laura suddenly became still, her sobs ceasing. Slowly she raised such a white, terror-stricken face, that Edith was startled. She had never seen her elder sister, once so stately and proud, then so apathetic, moved like this.