That night, as Fannie lay on the wretched bed of her poor room, in darkness and solitude, and in the semi-delirium of fever, suddenly an apparition, like some ghastly phantom of her husband, gleamed out from the surrounding shadows, stooped over, raised her in its ghostly arms, chattered, raved wildly, incoherently, and—was lost; whether really from the room, or only from her failing consciousness, is not certain—and, indeed, how much of this scene was an actual occurrence, and how much of it was the mere phantasmagoria of frenzy, the sufferer never knew!
CHAPTER VIII.
THE APPARITION.
Ye seem to look on me with asking eyes!
Listen! and I will tell a fearful story!
Since I remember aught about myself,
A strange heart sickness almost like to death,
A deep remorse for some unacted crime,
For some impossible, nameless wickedness,
Was on me—in its prophecy I lived;
No wretch dragg'd on to execution
E'er felt more horrid pangs than then stirr'd up
My spirit with remorseful agony.—John Wilson.
Eighteen months had passed since the murder of Oswald Waring, and yet the murderer had not been apprehended. Though, upon the night of that fatal catastrophe, both the regular and volunteer police had turned out in great numbers, and scattered themselves over the neighborhood in pursuit of the criminal; though trained sleuth-hounds had been made to smell his clothing, and had been set upon his scent; though, thus with men and dogs, the authorities had hunted him throughout the State, and had offered the largest rewards for his betrayal or apprehension, this length of time had passed, and he had not been arrested.
Mr. Waring having died intestate, his property, according to the laws of that commonwealth, fell to the next of kin.
His childless widow inherited none of her late husband's wealth, but returned to New Orleans, and thence retired to the country, to live upon her own reserved patrimony.
The plantation fell into other hands, and the planter passed out of memory.
Valentine, with his crime and his fate, overlaid by newer excitements, was already sinking into oblivion. He was supposed to have escaped from the State. But there were three faithful friends who knew that, in all this time, the miserable young man had never left the neighborhood, or wandered five miles from the blood-stained floor of his crime.