"I should like the doctor to see her; at the same time, I grieve to arouse him from sleep," said Miss Beverage.
"Law, ma'am, that's nothing to doctors; they are used to it," cried Jelly.
"Mother, would thee like Oliver Rane sent for?" asked Miss Beverage, bending over the suffering lady. "Yes--yes," was the feeble answer. "I am very ill, Sarah."
"Thee go, then, Jelly."
Away went Jelly. Unbarring their own front-door, she passed out of it, and approached Dr. Rane's. The doctor's professional lamp burnt clearly, and, to her great surprise, Jelly saw that the door was not closed.
"He cannot have gone to bed to-night," she thought, as she walked in without ringing. It was past three o'clock.
But the house seemed to be still and dark. Jelly left the front-door open, and the light shone a little way into the passage. She tried the surgery-door; it was locked; she tried the dining-room; the key of that was also turned; the kitchen-door stood open, but it was all in darkness.
"He has gone to bed and forgotten to shut up," was the conclusion Jelly now arrived at. "I'll go up and call him."
Groping her way upstairs, she had almost reached the top, when a pale white light suddenly illumined the landing--just the same faint sort of light that Jelly had seen once before, and remembered all too well. Raising her head hastily, there stood--what?
Not quite at the moment did Jelly know what. Not in the first access of terror did she clearly recognize the features of Bessy Rane. It was she, all too surely; that is, the image of what she had been. She seemed to stand almost face to face with Jelly: Jelly nearly at the top of the staircase, she facing it before her. The light was even more faint before the figure than behind: but there was no mistaking it. What it was dressed in or whence it came, Jelly never knew: there it was--the form and face of Bessy Rane. With a cry of agony, that echoed to the ends of the empty house in the night's silence, Jelly turned and flew down again.