“And she would tell you no more, madame?”
“Not one word more; and the next day she went away from me, my pretty darling, to be lost in the mysteries of that wicked New York!” sobbed the poor woman.
“Do you really believe that Suicide Place is haunted, Madame?”
“Oh, yes, sir, certainly. Every one says so; and lights have been seen in the windows many a dark night, though the place hasn’t had a tenant these nine years and more. ’Tis said that evil spirits haunt the place and drive the tenants to madness or suicide.”
Her story was interesting, but it threw no light on the deep mystery of Florence Fane’s fate.
So he went back to New York to tell his wealthy patron that he had failed in his quest.
“I have learned all that was possible to find out about her,” he said. “It is agreed by all who know her that she was lovely and fascinating to a high degree. She had many admirers, but she had laughed at them in her pretty, saucy fashion, and all believed that she was heart-whole and fancy-free.”
He found Mrs. Beresford and Alva so strangely interested in the young girl’s fate that he told them all he had heard at Mount Vernon of her romantic story, and added:
“It seems likely that there is a stain of madness in the blood leading ultimately to suicide. This young girl, inheriting this terrible taint, and suffering an aberration of mind from her fall, may have fled from the hospital straight to the cold embrace of the river.”
They shuddered, the two beautiful, high-born women, at his words, but Mrs. Beresford said quickly: