"It was," replied the spirit; "and also for my lover. Oh, let me not pray in vain. Tell me thou wilt pray for me."
"Spirit," I answered, "I am not of thy creed. I am a Protestant. Our church holds all prayers for the dead useless."
"I know it; but it is an error. Pray, nevertheless. Thou comest from Rome, and wilt shortly return thither. Bid the pious monks and nuns there pray for my soul, and for the soul of my lover."
"Spirit, thy request is granted, and if my own weak prayers may serve in any way to relieve thy torments, they, too, shall be added."
A smile of the most ineffable sweetness and gratitude, more eloquent than words, spread over the face of the decapitated. She pressed my hand fervently with her pale, icy-cold fingers, and gradually faded from my gaze.
When she had vanished, it was already daybreak. Sleep had deserted my eyelids, and as I tossed restlessly in my bed I kept wondering to myself whether what I had seen and heard could be a dream, or whether I really and truly had held converse with a ghost.
The rest of the time, with the exception of a short doze I took previous to rising this morning, I spent in prayer for the release of the soul of the headless lady from purgatory, and likewise that of her lover.
I leave the reader to imagine the sensation our artist's spiritual visitation excited at the breakfast-table before the members of the Wonder Club, whose thirst for the marvellous and supernatural was insatiable. Second and third-hand ghost stories are common enough, and are generally taken for what they are worth; but here was the case of a ghost story told by the ghost seer himself, who had seen and spoken to the ghost only the night before; in the very house, too, in which they had all been sleeping. Then, added to that, was the manner of the narrator, which alone bore the stamp of truth on it. The quick roll of his eye, when he was describing the excited state of his feelings at the time, the involuntary shudder, and the furtive glance which he from time to time would give over his shoulder; all signs of a nervous system that has received some great shock—to say nothing of his worn and disordered appearance, as might be expected in a man that has seen a ghost.
All this enhanced the power of his words immensely. Then there was the strange fact to be borne in mind that no one had informed him that the house was haunted. No one could say that his imagination had been unduly excited by any story concerning the house previous to his going to sleep. He had retired to rest calmly, without any fear of a spiritual visitation. And how could it all be a dream? For the landlord now distinctly remembered that all our artist had related was exactly what had been told him by his grandfather.