“I cannot bear it,” she whispered to herself even while creeping forward, her hand upon the wall. “I will close my eyes” was her next thought. “I will make my own darkness,” and with a spasmodic forcing of her lids together, she continued to creep on, passing the mantelpiece, where she knocked against something which fell with an awful clatter.
This sound, followed as it was by that of smothered voices from the excited group awaiting the result of her experiment from behind the impenetrable wall she should be nearing now if she had followed her instructions aright, freed her instantly from her fancies; and opening her eyes once more, she cast a look ahead, and to her delight, saw but a few steps away, the thin streak of bright light which marked the end of her journey.
It took her but a moment after that to find the missing page, and picking it up in haste from the dusty floor, she turned herself quickly about and joyfully began to retrace her steps. Why then, was it that in the course of a few minutes more her voice suddenly broke into a wild, unearthly shriek, which ringing with terror burst the bounds of that dungeon-like room, and sank, a barbed shaft, into the breasts of those awaiting the result of her doubtful adventure, at either end of this dread no-thoroughfare.
What had happened?
If they had thought to look out, they would have seen that the moon—held in check by a bank of cloud occupying half the heavens—had suddenly burst its bounds and was sending long bars of revealing light into every uncurtained window.
VI
Florence Digby, in her short and sheltered life, had possibly never known any very great or deep emotion. But she touched the bottom of extreme terror at that moment, as with her ears still thrilling with Violet’s piercing cry, she turned to look at Mr. Van Broecklyn, and beheld the instantaneous wreck it had made of this seemingly strong man. Not till he came to lie in his coffin would he show a more ghastly countenance; and trembling herself almost to the point of falling, caught him by the arm and sought to read his face what had happened. Something disastrous she was sure; something which he had feared and was partially prepared for, yet which in happening had crushed him. Was it a pitfall into which the poor little lady had fallen? If so—But he is speaking—mumbling low words to himself. Some of them she can hear. He is reproaching himself—repeating over and over that he should never have taken such a chance; that he should have remembered her youth—the weakness of a young girl’s nerve. He had been mad, and now—and now—
With the repetition of this word his murmuring ceased. All his energies were now absorbed in listening at the low door separating him from what he was agonizing to know—a door impossible to enter, impossible to enlarge—a barrier to all help—an opening whereby sound might pass but nothing else, save her own small body, now lying—where?
“Is she hurt?” faltered Florence, stooping, herself, to listen. “Can you hear anything—anything?”
For an instant he did not answer; every faculty was absorbed in the one sense; then slowly and in gasps he began to mutter:
“I think—I hear—something. Her step—no, no, no step. All is as quiet as death; not a sound, not a breath—she has fainted. O God! O God! Why this calamity on top of all!”
He had sprung to his feet at the utterance this invocation, but next moment was down on knees again, listening—listening.
Never was silence more profound; they were hearkening for murmurs from a tomb. Florence began to sense the full horror of it all, and was swaying helplessly when Mr. Van Broecklyn impulsively lifted his hand in an admonitory Hush! and through the daze of her faculties a small far sound began to make itself heard, growing louder as she waited, then becoming faint again, then altogether ceasing only to renew itself once more, till it resolved into an approaching step, faltering in its course, but coming ever nearer and nearer.
“She’s safe! She’s not hurt!” sprang from Florence’s lips in inexpressible relief; and expecting Mr. Van Broecklyn to show an equal joy, she turned towards him, with the cheerful cry,
“Now if she has been so fortunate as to that missing page, we shall all be repaid for our fright.”
A movement on his part, a shifting of position which brought him finally to his feet, but he gave no other proof of having heard her, nor did his countenance mirror her relief. “It is as if he dreaded, instead of hailed, her return,” was Florence’s inward comment as she watched him involuntarily recoil at each fresh token of Violet’s advance.
Yet because this seemed so very unnatural, she persisted in her efforts to lighten the situation, and when he made no attempt to encourage Violet in her approach, she herself stooped and called out a cheerful welcome which must have rung sweetly in the poor little detective’s ears.
A sorry sight was Violet, when, helped by Florence, she finally crawled into view through the narrow opening and stood once again on the cellar floor. Pale, trembling, and soiled with the dust of years, she presented a helpless figure enough, till the joy in Florence’s face recalled some of her spirit, and, glancing down at her hand in which a sheet of paper was visible, she asked for Mr. Spielhagen.
“I’ve got the formula,” she said. “If you will bring him, I will hand it over to him here.”
Not a word of her adventure; nor so much as one glance at Mr. Van Broecklyn, standing far back in the shadows.
Nor was she more communicative, when, the formula restored and everything made right with Mr. Spielhagen, they all came together again in the library for a final word. “I was frightened by the silence and the darkness, and so cried out,” she explained in answer to their questions. “Any one would have done so who found himself alone in so musty a place,” she added, with an attempt at lightsomeness which deepened the pallor on Mr. Van Broecklyn’s cheek, already sufficiently noticeable to have been remarked upon by more than one.
“No ghosts?” laughed Mr. Cornell, too happy in the return of his hopes to be fully sensible of the feelings of those about him. “No whispers from impalpable lips or touches from spectre hands? Nothing to explain the mystery of that room long shut up that even Mr. Van Broecklyn declares himself ignorant of its secret?”
“Nothing,” returned Violet, showing her dimples in full force now.
“If Miss Strange had any such experiences—if she has anything to tell worthy of so marked a curiosity, she will tell it now,” came from the gentleman just alluded to, in tones so stern and strange that all show of frivolity ceased on the instant. “Have you anything to tell, Miss Strange?”
Greatly startled, she regarded him with widening eyes for a moment, then with a move towards the door, remarked, with a general look about her:
“Mr. Van Broecklyn knows his own house, and doubtless can relate its histories if he will. I am a busy little body who having finished my work am now ready to return home, there to wait for the next problem which an indulgent fate may offer me.”
She was near the threshold—she was about to take her leave, when suddenly she felt two hands fall on her shoulder, and turning, met the eyes of Mr. Van Broecklyn burning into her own.
“You saw!” dropped in an almost inaudible whisper from his lips.
The shiver which shook her answered him better than any word.
With an exclamation of despair, he withdrew his hands, and