"Goodness me!" said Mrs. Munn in surprise, "how on earth did that window come to be opened?"
Miss Arabella uttered a cry. She clutched Elsie's arm and pointed to the wall. Mrs. Munn set the lamp down upon the bare pine table and stared. There was the hook where the dress had so lately hung, in its winding-sheet; there on the floor were great muddy tracks across to it from the doorway, and where—oh, where—— The three women turned and looked at each other in speechless dismay. The room was empty; the wedding gown had eloped!
CHAPTER XVI
THE CALL OF THE BANSHEE
The sunset has faded, there's but a tinge
Saffron pale, where a star of white
Has tangled itself in the trailing fringe
Of the pearl-gray robe of the summer night.
—JEAN BLEWETT.
By the time Gilbert had attended to his patients, and was returning along the old corduroy road, the night had long fallen. The bird chorus of the swamp had died away, and only the sweet note of the little screech-owl awoke the echoes of the dark woods. Now and then a gleam of spectral light through the trees showed where lay the waters of the Drowned Lands. The young man tramped moodily along the pathway, following the strip of pale sky between the black lines of trees. He was thinking of Martin's last letter, in answer to the money he had sent. It contained only the humblest thanks, with never a hint of past suffering. He could see before him his old friend's honest, generous face, with no reproach in it, and beside it another face, with its golden-brown eyes full of sorrowful accusation.
He was aroused from his painful reflections by the appearance of a point of light far down the dim roadway. It was not so much the light itself that attracted his attention, as its strange movements. It darted hither and thither, crossing and recrossing the road; now it disappeared among the trees, now reappeared, and swung wildly to and fro. Gilbert was reminded of the ghostly tales of the will-o'-the-wisp, and the banshee, and other terrifying creatures, which, village gossip said, inhabited the Drowned Lands. But he had a more practical explanation of the strange phenomenon.
"If it isn't some other infernal agency," he said to himself grimly, "I'm willing to take my oath that it's Jake Sawyer's eldest orphan that's performing those queer dodges."
As he drew nearer, the light stood still, and he could discern two forms, Tim, of course, and equally of course, his companion in mischief, Davy Munn. They stood in the ring of light and gazed apprehensively toward the approaching figure. "Hello!" called the young man. "What are you two scamps doing down here at this hour of the night?"