“But would not your presence by my side—they know you’re alive—reassure them?”
“My dear Mrs. Garnet, they assisted at your funeral, twelve months ago, and seeing us enter at midnight together will sooner believe me to be a second ghost than you to be a living woman. No, my dear friend, you must veil yourself closely, and after I have got you into the house, pass quietly up to General Garnet’s chamber and reveal yourself to him. Here we are at last,” said Dr. Hardcastle, pulling up before the front door of the mansion.
All was dark except a fitful light that gleamed and sunk, and gleamed and sunk, from the upper windows of General Garnet’s chamber—as if a candle was expiring there in the socket.
“It must be near two o’clock—yet he is still sitting up for me—see there,” whispered Alice, pointing to the flashing and darkening light.
“He must be alone, and have dropped asleep by that expiring light,” murmured Magnus, as he led her up the stairs to the front door. “Now, courage, my dear friend. Remember that in me you have a protector near you,” whispered Dr. Hardcastle, as he fumbled about in the dark for the knocker. In doing so the door swung silently open—it had evidently been left ajar. They entered noiselessly. The hall was perfectly dark and silent; no sound was heard but the moan of the wind and the heavy fall of the rain without. “Now, dearest Alice, he has evidently left the door ajar that you might enter without rousing the servants, and make your way at once to his chamber, where he awaits you. Go on—yet! stay! I do not like the looks of this thing, either. No one knows of your existence—no one knows that you were expected here; he awaits you alone in the solitude, silence, and darkness of deep night. No, Alice! I cannot let you go alone to his baleful presence—I must attend you.”
“Not for the world, Magnus. What monstrous thought is in your mind? Does midnight storm and solitude raise such phantoms of fear in your strong mind?”
“Alice! bethink you! he is a man of fearful passions, yet of profound subtlety and secretiveness. He believed you dead and was about to be married. He finds that he has been deceived in your death, and that his own marriage is about to be ridiculously broken off. He has imaginary injuries to revenge, and endangered joys to secure—both ends to be reached by one means. And, more than all, he has the fearful temptation of fancied impunity. Alice, take care! This open door—this silent house—this lonely watcher in the solitary chamber—this deep night hour—and the expected lonely visitor. Alice, take care!” whispered Magnus.
“Horrible! most horrible. You make my blood curdle. Not with fear, but with horror, at the monster in your imagination. You must not enter with me. I will go in alone. Follow, if you please to do so, at a short distance. I have no such dreadful fear or doubt. I tremble, it is true; but I should also tremble if, in broad daylight, a score of people witnessed our meeting. Come on, and remain upon the landing while I go in.”
On entering his chamber General Garnet suddenly bethought himself of something—he could not exactly think what—forgotten. A strange absence of mind, temporary loss of memory, transient confusion of thought, had fitfully afflicted him all day long. He put his hand to his forehead, and walked up and down in doubt and perplexity, then suddenly recollecting what he wanted, he rang the bell, and when a servant, half-dressed, appeared, demanded, impatiently: