"A strange-looking man, Sir," she said, "gave it in at the door: more like a corpse than a living man."
"You may go," said Sir William Winslow, without opening the letter, which he conceived to be some law paper, connected perhaps with the relations regarding property between his brother and himself; and when she was gone he paused a moment, in thought. Whatever were his meditations, they ended by his exclaiming, "No! Curse me if he shall! It is unfair and unjust. I am the eldest son; and he had no right to have it. I will fight it out to the last penny I have."
As he spoke, he tore open the letter hastily. What was his surprise to find that the few lines it contained were written in blood-red ink, and in a fine, clear, steady female hand. He held it to the candle and read the following words:--
"William Winslow, alive or dead, meet me on Thursday at your father's grave in the churchyard of Elmsly, at midnight. Fail not, or I will come to fetch you.
"Susan Grey."
He let the parchment fall from his hand, and gazed at it as it lay upon the floor with a wild and straining eye. No one had scoffed more loudly at all superstitions--no one in his life and conduct had shown a more practical contempt for the very idea of supernatural visitations. But his nerves were shaken by remorse and apprehension. Terror and anxiety had enlisted fancy on their side. He knew the handwriting well; he believed that no one was aware of his return to England; he thought that the hand which must have traced those lines had long been consigned to the grave. Hardihood, and firmness, and the powers of reason, gave way together; and the fierce, firm, proud Sir William Winslow, trembled in every limb. He called it a fraud--an absurd, a ludicrous invention, an idle deceit, a scheme only fit to frighten a child. But yet he gazed upon the parchment, yet his limbs shook; notwithstanding every effort, yet his heart sunk; and he thought of the injured and the dead; he thought of his violated promises, his unfeeling abandonment, his brutal repulse of the prayer for mercy and support; and he felt, ay, he felt in the heart of the spirit, that if ever the dead are permitted to revisit earth and warn those who have wronged them of approaching retribution, his was a case in which such an awful interruption of the ordinary laws that govern all things might well take place: in short, that he had called upon himself a special curse, and might well expect a special punishment.
Ere he could nerve himself to throw off the first dark impression, the door opened suddenly; and with a fearful start Sir William Winslow sank into a chair. The next instant his brother stood before him.
"What brings you here?" cried the baronet, recovering himself the next moment; "what brings you to this house? I thought, Sir, we had parted not to meet again."
"You were mistaken, Sir William," answered Chandos, shutting the door behind him. "Events have taken place since we parted which render our meeting again necessary. When I left you, I told you I would never enter your house again; but in coming hither I only come to my own."
"Your own!" exclaimed Sir William; "what do you mean? Have you gone mad?"