This was addressed sternly to Mrs. Mack herself, who, followed by poor Mrs. Nutter's eyes, moved fatly and meekly out of the room.
She was not without her fair share of curiosity, but on the whole, was relieved, and very willing to go. She had only seen Mary Matchwell take from her pocket and uncase a small, oval-shaped steel mirror, which seemed to have the property of magnifying objects; for she saw her cadaverous fingers reflected in it to fully double their natural size, and she had half filled a glass with water, and peered through it askew, holding it toward the light.
Well, the door was shut, and an interval of five minutes elapsed; and all of a sudden two horrible screams in quick succession rang through the house.
Betty, the maid, and Mrs. Mack were in the small room on the other side of the hall, and stared in terror on one another. The old lady, holding Betty by the wrist, whispered a benediction; and Betty crying—'Oh! my dear, what's happened the poor misthress?' crossed the hall in a second, followed by Mrs. Mack, and they heard the door unlocked on the inside as they reached it.
In they came, scarce knowing how, and found poor little Mrs. Nutter flat upon the floor, in a swoon, her white face and the front of her dress drenched with water.
'You've a scent bottle, Mrs. Macnamara—let her smell to it,' said the grim woman in black, coldly, but with a scarcely perceptible gleam of triumph, as she glanced on the horrified faces of the women.
Well, it was a long fainting-fit; but she did come out of it. And when her bewildered gaze at last settled upon Mrs. Matchwell, who was standing darkly and motionless between the windows, she uttered another loud and horrible cry, and clung with her arms round Mrs. Mack's neck, and screamed—
'Oh! Mrs. Mack, there she is—there she is—there she is.'
And she screamed so fearfully and seemed in such an extremity of terror, that Mary Matchwell, in her sables, glided, with a strange sneer on her pale face, out of the room across the hall, and into the little parlour on the other side, like an evil spirit whose mission was half accomplished, and who departed from her for a season.
'She's here—she's here!' screamed poor little Mrs. Nutter.