I pulled myself together and made for the bell. My hand was on it, when I heard a sound behind me, and turned – the bell still unrung. The fire had burned low, and the corners of the room were deeply shadowed; but, surely, there – behind the tall worked chair – was something darker than a shadow.
"I must face this out," I said, "or I shall never be able to face myself again." I left the bell, I seized the poker, and battered the dull coals to a blaze. Then I stepped back resolutely, and looked up at the picture. The ebony frame was empty! From the shadow of the worked chair came a silken rustle, and out of the shadow the woman of the picture was coming – coming towards me.
I hope I shall never again know a moment of terror so blank and absolute. I could not have moved or spoken to save my life. Either all the known laws of nature were nothing, or I was mad. I stood trembling, but, I am thankful to remember, I stood still, while the black velvet gown swept across the hearthrug towards me.
Next moment a hand touched me – a hand soft, warm, and human – and a low voice said, "You called me. I am here."
At that touch and that voice the world seemed to give a sort of bewildering half-turn. I hardly know how to express it, but at once it seemed not awful – not even unusual – for portraits to become flesh – only most natural, most right, most unspeakably fortunate.
I laid my hand on hers. I looked from her to my portrait. I could not see it in the firelight.
"We are not strangers," I said.
"Oh no, not strangers." Those luminous eyes were looking up into mine – those red lips were near me. With a passionate cry – a sense of having suddenly recovered life's one great good, that had seemed wholly lost – I clasped her in my arms. She was no ghost – she was a woman – the only woman in the world.
"How long," I said, "O love – how long since I lost you?"
She leaned back, hanging her full weight on the hands that were clasped behind my head.
"How can I tell how long? There is no time in hell," she answered.
It was not a dream. Ah, no – there are no such dreams. I wish to God there could be. When in dreams do I see her eyes, hear her voice, feel her lips against my cheek, hold her hands to my lips, as I did that night – the supreme night of my life? At first we hardly spoke. It seemed enough —
"… after long grief and pain,
To feel the arms of my true love
Round me once again."
It is very difficult to tell this story. There are no words to express the sense of glad reunion, the complete realization of every hope and dream of a life, that came upon me as I sat with my hand in hers and looked into her eyes.
How could it have been a dream, when I left her sitting in the straight-backed chair, and went down to the kitchen to tell the maids I should want nothing more – that I was busy, and did not wish to be disturbed; when I fetched wood for the fire with my own hands, and, bringing it in, found her still sitting there – saw the little brown head turn as I entered, saw the love in her dear eyes; when I threw myself at her feet and blessed the day I was born, since life had given me this?
Not a thought of Mildred: all the other things in my life were a dream – this, its one splendid reality.
"I am wondering," she said after a while, when we had made such cheer each of the other as true lovers may after long parting – "I am wondering how much you remember of our past."
"I remember nothing," I said. "Oh, my dear lady, my dear sweetheart – I remember nothing but that I love you – that I have loved you all my life."
"You remember nothing – really nothing?"
"Only that I am yours; that we have both suffered; that – Tell me, my mistress dear, all that you remember. Explain it all to me. Make me understand. And yet – No, I don't want to understand. It is enough that we are together."
If it was a dream, why have I never dreamed it again?
She leaned down towards me, her arm lay on my neck, and drew my head till it rested on her shoulder. "I am a ghost, I suppose," she said, laughing softly; and her laughter stirred memories which I just grasped at, and just missed. "But you and I know better, don't we? I will tell you everything you have forgotten. We loved each other – ah! no, you have not forgotten that – and when you came back from the war we were to be married. Our pictures were painted before you went away. You know I was more learned than women of that day. Dear one, when you were gone they said I was a witch. They tried me. They said I should be burned. Just because I had looked at the stars and had gained more knowledge than they, they must needs bind me to a stake and let me be eaten by the fire. And you far away!"
Her whole body trembled and shrank. O love, what dream would have told me that my kisses would soothe even that memory?
"The night before," she went on, "the devil did come to me. I was innocent before – you know it, don't you? And even then my sin was for you – for you – because of the exceeding love I bore you. The devil came, and I sold my soul to eternal flame. But I got a good price. I got the right to come back, through my picture (if any one looking at it wished for me), as long as my picture stayed in its ebony frame. That frame was not carved by man's hand. I got the right to come back to you. Oh, my heart's heart, and another thing I won, which you shall hear anon. They burned me for a witch, they made me suffer hell on earth. Those faces, all crowding round, the crackling wood and the smell of the smoke – "
"O love! no more – no more."
"When my mother sat that night before my picture she wept, and cried, 'Come back, my poor lost child!' And I went to her, with glad leaps of heart. Dear, she shrank from me, she fled, she shrieked and moaned of ghosts. She had our pictures covered from sight and put again in the ebony frame. She had promised me my picture should stay always there. Ah, through all these years your face was against mine."
She paused.
"But the man you loved?"
"You came home. My picture was gone. They lied to you, and you married another woman; but some day I knew you would walk the world again and that I should find you."
"The other gain?" I asked.
"The other gain," she said slowly, "I gave my soul for. It is this. If you also will give up your hopes of heaven I can remain a woman, I can move in your world – I can be your wife. Oh, my dear, after all these years, at last – at last."
"If I sacrifice my soul," I said slowly, with no thought of the imbecility of such talk in our "so-called nineteenth century" – "if I sacrifice my soul, I win you? Why, love, it's a contradiction in terms. You are my soul."
Her eyes looked straight into mine. Whatever might happen, whatever did happen, whatever may happen, our two souls in that moment met, and became one.
"Then you choose – you deliberately choose – to give up your hopes of heaven for me, as I gave up mine for you?"
"I decline," I said, "to give up my hope of heaven on any terms. Tell me what I must do, that you and I may make our heaven here – as now, my dear love."
"I will tell you to-morrow," she said. "Be alone here to-morrow night – twelve is ghost's time, isn't it? – and then I will come out of the picture and never go back to it. I shall live with you, and die, and be buried, and there will be an end of me. But we shall live first, my heart's heart."
I laid my head on her knee. A strange drowsiness overcame me. Holding her hand against my cheek, I lost consciousness. When I awoke the grey November dawn was glimmering, ghost-like, through the uncurtained window. My head was pillowed on my arm, which rested – I raised my head quickly – ah! not on my lady's knee, but on the needle-worked cushion of the straight-backed chair. I sprang to my feet. I was stiff with cold, and dazed with dreams, but I turned my eyes on the picture. There she sat, my lady, my dear love. I held out my arms, but the passionate cry I would have uttered died on my lips. She had said twelve o'clock. Her lightest word was my law. So I only stood in front of the picture and gazed into