"Well, I feel it none the less deeply on that account; but Miss Campbell and I are different; and, besides, she has known her much longer than I have. But it is almost dark, Edgar; and you have had no dinner. Are you sufficiently recovered to come down to tea?"
"I think not; I do not care for any. I will go to bed."
"Let me bring you up some tea and toast first," said Laura. "You have eaten nothing all day."
She left the room, and soon reappeared with the tea-tray. And Courtney, to satisfy his wife—having partaken of a light supper—retired to bed, wearied after the excitement of the day.
He closed his eyes, but not in sleep. Hour after hour passed on, while he lay tossing restlessly, striving to banish from his mind the tragedy of the previous night. All in vain! sleep would not come at his call. Again he beheld the lifeless form of the murdered girl lying before him, with the rain and wind beating pitilessly on her cold, white face, while the life-blood ebbed slowly from the wound his hand had inflicted. He closed his eyes with a shudder, and pressed his hands over them; but he saw her before him still. How the scorpion sting of conscience lashed him now in the deep silence of the solemn night!
At length he fell into an uneasy slumber, but only to re-enact, in feverish dreams, the vision of his waking hours. Still before him was that body on the beach; but now, as he gazed, the deep blue eyes seemed to open and fix themselves, with a look of unutterable reproach, on his face. Slowly the rigid form seemed to rise and approach him. Nearer and nearer it came, with its glassy, stony eyes staring upon him steadily, until it stood by his bedside. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth; cold drops of perspiration stood on his brow; he would have cried out, but his throat seemed parched. With one spectral hand it pointed to the gash in its side; and laid the other, icy-cold, on his brow. With a shriek of terror, he sprang from the bed, and stood trembling in every limb on the floor.
He looked around in an agony of fear and horror, but he was alone; and with teeth chattering and head reeling, he sank into a seat, and covered his face with his hands, exclaiming:
"Oh, it was she! it was she! Am I never to be rid of this ghostly presence? Is she to rise from her ocean grave thus, every night, to drive me mad?"
The great old clock in the hall chimed twelve. He shuddered at the sound; and hearing footsteps ascending the stairs, knew that the family were retiring. Casting himself once more on the bed, he strove to compose himself, and while away, in fitful slumber, the tedious hours, till morning should dawn.