Leonard's sensitive ear detected a change in her voice. "Is there any thing that alarms you in the picture?" he asked, half in jest, half in earnest.
"There is something that startles me—something that seems to have turned me cold for the moment, hot as the day is," said Rosamond. "Do you remember the description the servant-girl gave us, on the night we arrived here, of the ghost of the north rooms?"
"Yes, I remember it perfectly."
"Lenny! that description and this picture are exactly alike! Here is the curling, light-brown hair. Here is the dimple on each cheek. Here are the bright regular teeth. Here is that leering, wicked, fatal beauty which the girl tried to describe, and did describe, when she said it was awful!"
Leonard smiled. "That vivid fancy of yours, my dear, takes strange flights sometimes," he said, quietly.
"Fancy!" repeated Rosamond to herself. "How can it be fancy when I see the face? how can it be fancy when I feel—" She stopped, shuddered again, and, returning hastily to the table, placed the picture on it, face downward. As she did so, the morsel of folded paper which she had removed from the back of the frame caught her eye.
"There may be some account of the picture in this," she said, and stretched out her hand to it.
It was getting on toward noon. The heat weighed heavier on the air, and the stillness of all things was more intense than ever, as she took up the paper from the table.
Fold by fold she opened it, and saw that there were written characters inside, traced in ink that had faded to a light, yellow hue. She smoothed it out carefully on the table—then took it up again and looked at the first line of the writing.
The first line contained only three words—words which told her that the paper with the writing on it was not a description of the picture, but a letter—words which made her start and change color the moment her eye fell upon them. Without attempting to read any further, she hastily turned over the leaf to find out the place where the writing ended.