“I know what I know, and I have seen what I have seen,” was the reply of Janet, spoken slowly; nay, solemnly. “It is no wonder that you wish to ignore it, to affect to disbelieve in it; but you can do neither the one nor the other, George Godolphin.”
George gave no answering argument. It may be that he had felt he had forfeited the right to argue with Janet. She again broke the silence.
“I have watched and watched; but never once, since the day that those horrible misfortunes fell, has that Shadow appeared. I thought it had gone for good; I thought that our ruin, the passing of Ashlydyat into the possession of strangers, was the working out of the curse. But it seems it has come again; for the last time, as I believe. And it is only in accordance with the past, that the type of the curse should come to shadow forth the death of the last Godolphin.”
“You are complimentary to me, Janet,” cried George good-humouredly. “When poor Thomas shall have gone, I shall be here still, the last of the Godolphins.”
“You!” returned Janet, and her tone of scornful contempt, unconscious as she might herself be of it, brought a sting to George’s mind, a flush to his brow. “You might be worthy of the name of Godolphin once, laddie, but that’s over. The last true Godolphin dies out with Thomas.”
“How long are you going to sit here?” asked George, after a time, as she gave no signs of moving.
“You need not wait,” returned Janet. “I am at home now, as may be said. Don’t stay, George: I would rather you did not: your wife must be expecting you.”
Glad enough to be released, George went his way, and Janet sat on, alone. With that Shadow before her—though no longer a dark one—it was impossible but that her reflections should turn to the unhappy past: and she lost herself in perplexity.
A great deal of this story, The Shadow of Ashlydyat, is a perfectly true one; it is but the recital of a drama in real life. And the superstition that encompasses it? ten thousand inquisitive tongues will ask. Yes, and the superstition. There are things, as I have just said, which can neither be explained nor accounted for: they are marvels, mysteries, and so they must remain. Many a family has its supernatural skeleton, religiously believed in; many a house has its one dread corner which has never been fully unclosed to the light of day. Say what men will to the contrary, there is a tendency in the human mind to tread upon the confines of superstition. We cannot shut our eyes to things that occur within our view, although we may be, and always shall be, utterly unable to explain them; what they are, what they spring from, why they come. If I were to tell you that I believed there are such things as omens, warnings, which come to us—though seldom are they sufficiently marked at the time to be attended to—I should be called a visionary day-dreamer. I am nothing of the sort. I have my share of plain common sense. I pass my time in working, not in dreaming. I never had the gratification of seeing a ghost yet, and I wish I was as sure of the fruition of my dearest hopes, as I am that I never shall see one. I have not been taken into favour by the spirits, have never been promoted to so much as half a message from them—and never expect to be. But some curious incidents have forced themselves on my life’s experience, causing me to echo as a question the assertion of the Prince of Denmark—Are there not more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy?
Janet Godolphin rose with a deep sigh and her weight of care. She kept her head turned to the Shadow until she had passed from its view, and then continued her way to the house, murmuring: “It’s but a small misfortune; the Shadow is scarcely darker than the moonlight itself.”