Wider and wider stared her eyes, but no sound escaped her lips. She gazed and gazed, but the specter would not vanish. Poor Miss Arthur was terror-stricken almost to the verge of catalepsy.
In consideration of the persistence with which they return again and again, according to good authority, ghosts in general must be endowed with much patience. Be this as it may of the average ghost, certain it is that this particular apparition, after glaring immovably at the spinster for the space of five minutes, began to find it monotonous.
Slowly, slowly from among the snowy drapery came forth a white hand, that pointed at the occupant of the bed with silent menace.
"Near the bed, almost within reach of her hand, stood Madeline Payne, all swathed in white!"—[page 252.]
The spell was broken. The lips of Miss Arthur were unclosed, and shrieks, one following the other in rapid succession, resounded in the ears of even the most remote sleepers.
With the utterance of her first yell, Miss Arthur had made a desperate plunge to the further side of her bed, away from the specter; and, turning her face to the wall, shut out thus the appalling white vision.
Having once found her voice, Miss Arthur continued to clutch at the bed clothes, glare at the wall, and shriek spasmodically, even after her "inner consciousness" must have assured her that the room now held others beside herself and the ghost, supposing it to be still on the opposite side of the bed.
Cora, in a state of wild deshabille; John Arthur, ditto, and armed with a cane; Susan and Mary, half in the room and half out; then Céline Leroque, apparently much frightened, without knowing at what.