"Harriet," I said, as the girl came to my room in thin course of her duties, "how is Lady Chandos?"
"Well, Miss, we can't quite make out," was the answer. "Hill is in dreadful trouble, and the doctor is here again; but Lizzy Dene saw my lady for a minute this morning, and she looked much as usual."
So far well. To Lady Chandos I determined to penetrate ere the day should close. And I am sure, had anybody seen me that morning, dodging into the gallery from my room and back again, they would have deemed me haunted by a restless spirit. I was watching for my opportunity. It did not come for nearly all day. In the morning Dr. Laken and Mr. Chandos were there; in the afternoon Hill was shut up in it. It was getting dusk when I, still on the watch, saw Hill come forth. She left the door ajar, as if she intended to return instantly, and whisked into a large linen-closet close by. Now was my time. I glided past the closet, quiet as a mouse, and inside the green-baize door of the west wing.
But which was the room of Lady Chandos? No time was to be lost, for if Hill returned, she was sure to eject me summarily, as she had done once before. I softly opened two doors, taking no notice of what the rooms might contain, looking only whether Lady Chandos was inside. Next I came to one, and opened it, as I had the others; and saw—what? Who—who was it sitting there? Not Lady Chandos.
In a large arm-chair at the fire, propped up with pillows, sat an emaciated object, white, thin, cadaverous. A tall man evidently, bearing in features a great resemblance to Mr. Chandos, a strange likeness to that ghostly vision—if it had been one—I had once seen in the gallery. Was he the ghost?—sitting there and staring at me with his large eyes, but never speaking? If not a ghost, it must be a living skeleton.
My pulses stood still; my heart leaped into my mouth. The figure raised his arm, and pointed peremptorily to the door with his long, lanky, white fingers. A sign that I must quit his presence.
I was glad to do so. Startled, terrified, bewildered, I thought no more of Lady Chandos, but went back through the passage, and out at the green-baize door. There, face to face, I encountered Mr. Chandos.
I shall not readily forget his face when he looked at me. Never had greater hauteur, rarely greater anger, appeared in the countenance of any living man.
"Have you been in there?" he demanded.
"Yes. I——" More I could not say. The words stuck in my throat.