"It's said she had no sweetheart: or else----" Eliza was beginning. But the other went on, never hearing.
"If she were not dead, she would not come to me so often in my dreams--and she's always dead in them. And, look here," added the girl, in awed tones, drawing a step nearer, and gently pressing against Eliza's arm: "I wish some one could tell me why her hair is always wet when she appears. I can see water dripping from the ends of it."
Eliza shuddered, and glanced involuntarily around.
"Sometimes she calls me as if from a distance, and then I awake," resumed Susan. "She wants me to find her--I know that; but I never can, though I am looking for her continually."
"This poor thing must be crazed," thought the bewildered woman-servant.
"And I've fancied that you might help me. I've come about here at night, wanting to see you, and ask you, for ever so long. You can watch, and look, and listen when you are going about your work in the house, and perhaps you will come upon her, or some trace of her."
"Good mercy! You surely can't think she is _in_ the house!" exclaimed Eliza.
"I am sure she's in it."
"What--dead?"
"She must be dead. She can't be alive--all these weary weeks and months."