CHAPTER VII.
EUGENIE AND ANNA.
“It had been Anna’s daily custom to steal away after lunch to her favorite resort, the little yard where Agatha was buried, and where one of the servants had built her a rustic seat beneath the trees, and here Eugenie found her one afternoon, and leaning over the iron fence asked first if she might come in, and next whose grave it was. From where she stood she could not see the name upon the headstone, but when Anna answered, ‘It is the grave of the young girl who is said to haunt the chateau; you have heard the absurd story, of course,’ she was interested at once, for she had heard from her maid something of a ghost whose plaintive cry for home was heard wailing through the long, dark corridors, and in the lonely rooms, especially on stormy nights when the wind was high, and shook the massive walls of the chateau. Eugenie was not at all superstitious, and knowing that nearly every old place like Chateau d’Or had its ghost and ghost room, she had paid no attention to the tale as told her by Elise, but when it assumed a tangible form in the shape of a real grave, her curiosity was roused, and without waiting for Anna’s permission she passed through the gate, and going round to the seat where Anna sat, said:
“‘Then there was a girl who died and was buried here? Who was she? Do you know?’
“‘It was before I came,’ Anna answered, ‘and I only know that she was sick—crazy, they said, from some great wrong done to her, and quite up to her death she kept singing of her home in Normandy.’
“‘Normandy! Did you say she came from Normandy? What was her name?’ Eugenie asked, but before Anna could answer she bent down and read ‘Agatha, aged 20.’
“‘Agatha!’ she repeated, as she grasped the headstone and stood with her back to Anna, who thus did not see the corpse-like pallor which spread all over her face as a horrible suspicion passed through her mind. ‘Agatha what? Had she no other name?’ she asked at last, when she had mastered her emotion sufficiently to speak in her natural voice.
“‘Yes. Agatha Wynde,’ Anna replied, and was instantly startled by a low, sharp cry from her companion, who laid her hand upon her side, exclaiming:
“‘It’s my heart. I’m subject to it; but don’t call any one; let me sit here until I’m better. Anything like a fuss around me disturbs me so much.’
“She was very white, and shivering like one with an ague chill, and though Anna did not call any one, she was glad to see her own maid, Celine, coming toward them. Eugenie did not object to her, but suffered her to rub her head and hands until she was better, and the violent beating of her heart had ceased.