How long Mr. Val Blake stood there, staring at that sight of wonder, neither he nor I ever knew; but while it drooped in a strange, heartbroken way over the instrument, and he stood looking at it, powerless to speak or move, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and looking round he saw the pale face of Paul Wyndham. Pale always, but deadly white, Mr. Blake saw, in the spectral October gloaming.
"Blake," he said, in a hoarse whisper, that did not sound like Paul Wyndham's peculiarly clear and melodious voice, "if ever you were my friend, be silent now! Help me to get away from here unseen."
Some dim foreshadowing of the truth dawned on the slow mind of Val Blake. The ghost of Nathalie Marsh—the invisible and mysterious woman shut up in Rosebush Cottage—could they, after all, be connected, and was the mad mother only a blind. The question passed through Val's mind in a vague sort of way, while he watched Paul Wyndham bend over the drooping figure, as tenderly as a mother over the cradle of her first-born. His voice too, had changed when he spoke to her, and was infinitely gentle and loving.
"My darling," he said, "you must not stay here. I have come to fetch you home."
She lifted up her head at once, and held out her arms to him, like a little child that wants to be taken. All the pale, misty hair floated softly back from her wan face. Oh! how altered from the bright face Val Blake once knew, and the blue eyes she lifted to his face had a strange, meaningless light, that chilled the blood in the veins of the looker-on.
"Yes, take me away," she said, wearily; but in Nathalie Marsh's own voice. "I knew you would come. Where's Midge? I am cold here."
"Midge is at home, my darling. Here is your mantle—stand up while I put it on."
She arose; and Val saw she was dressed in white—a sort of white cashmere morning-gown, lined with quilted blue silk. Mr. Wyndham arranged the long white mantle around the wasted figure, drawing the hood over the head and face. Ghostly enough she looked, standing there in the gloom; and Val knew she must have been dressed in the same manner on the night she so startled him and Laura. But Mr. Wyndham, who wore a long black cloak himself these chilly evenings, took it off and arranged it over her white robes, effectually concealing them, as he drew her forward.
"Go down-stairs, Blake," he said, "a cab is waiting outside the gates. Come with us, and I will tell you everything."
Mr. Blake mechanically obeyed. He was not quite sure it was not all the nightmare, and not at all certain he was not asleep in his own room, and dreaming this singular little episode, and would awake presently to smile at it all. He went down-stairs in silent bewilderment, never speaking a word, and hardly able to think. Nathalie Marsh was dead—or at least some one was dead, and buried out there in the cemetery, that he had taken to be Nathalie Marsh—how then did she come to be walking down-stairs behind him, supported by that extraordinary man, Paul Wyndham?