This scream seemed to come from the room where we had just heard voices. With a common impulse Sinclair and I both started down the hall, only to find ourselves met by a dozen wild interrogations from behind as many quickly opened doors. Was it fire? Had burglars got in? What was the matter? Who had uttered that dreadful shriek2? Alas3! that was the question which we of all men were most anxious to hear answered. Who? Gilbertine or Dorothy?
Gilbertine’s door was reached first. In it stood a short, slight figure, wrapped in a hastily-donned shawl. The white face looked into ours as we stopped, and we recognised little Miss Lane.
“What has happened?” she gasped4. “It must have been an awful cry to waken everybody so!”
We never thought of answering her.
“Where is Gilbertine?” demanded Sinclair, thrusting his hand out as if to put her aside.
She drew herself up with sudden dignity.
“In bed,” she replied. “It was she who told me that somebody had shrieked5. I didn’t wake.”
Sinclair uttered a sigh of the greatest relief that ever burst from a man’s overcharged breast.
“Tell her we will find out what it means,” he answered kindly6, drawing me rapidly away.
By this time Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were aroused, and I could hear the slow and hesitating tones of the former in the passage behind us.
“Let us hasten,” whispered Sinclair, “Our eyes must be the first to see what lies behind that partly-opened door.”
I shivered. The door he had designated was Dorothy’s.
Sinclair reached it first and pushed it open. Pressing up behind him, I cast a fearful look over his shoulder. Only emptiness confronted us. Dorothy was not in the little chamber7. With an impulsive8 gesture Sinclair pointed9 to the bed — it had not been lain in — then to the gas — it was still burning. The communicating-room, in which Mrs. Lansing slept, was also lighted, but silent as the one in which we stood. This last fact struck us as the most incomprehensible of all. Mrs. Lansing was not the woman to sleep through a disturbance10. Where was she, then? And why did we not hear her strident and aggressive tones rising in angry remonstrance11 at our intrusion? Had she followed her niece from the room? Should we in another minute encounter her ponderous12 figure in the group of people we could now hear hurrying toward us? I was for retreating and hunting the house over for Dorothy. But Sinclair, with truer instinct, drew me across the threshold of this silent room.
Well was it for us that we entered there together, for I do not know how either of us, weakened as we were by our forebodings and all the alarms of this unprecedented13 night, could have borne alone the sight that awaited us.
On the bed situated14 at the right of the doorway15 lay a form — awful, ghastly, and unspeakably repulsive16. The head, which lay high but inert17 upon the pillow, was surrounded with the grey hairs of age, and the eyes, which seemed to stare into ours, were glassy with reflected light and not with inward intelligence. This glassiness told the tale of the room’s grim silence. It was death we looked on, not the death we had anticipated, and for which we were in a measure prepared, but one fully18 as awful, and having for its victim, not Dorothy Camerden nor even Gilbertine Murray, but the heartless aunt, who had driven them both like slaves, and who now lay facing the reward of her earthly deeds alone.
As a realisation of the awful truth came upon me I stumbled against the bedpost, looking on with almost blind eyes as Sinclair bent19 over the rapidly whitening face, whose naturally ruddy colour no one had ever before seen disturbed. And I was still standing20 there when Mr. Armstrong and all the others came pouring in. Nor have I any distinct remembrance of what was said or how I came to be in the antechamber again. All thought, all consciousness even, seemed to forsake21 me, and I did not really waken to my surroundings till some one near me whispered:
“Apoplexy!”
Then I began to look about me and peer into the faces crowding up on every side for the only one which could give me back my self-possession. But though there were many girlish countenances22 to be seen in the awestruck groups huddled24 in every corner, I beheld25 no Dorothy, and was therefore but little astonished when in another moment I heard the cry go up:
“Where is Dorothy? Where was she when her aunt died?”
Alas! there was no one there to answer, and the looks of those about, which hitherto had expressed little save awe23 and fright, turned to wonder, and more than one person left the room as if to look for her. I did not join them. I was rooted to the place. Nor did Sinclair stir a foot, though his eye, which had been wandering restlessly over the faces about him, now settled inquiringly on the doorway. For whom was he looking? Gilbertine or Dorothy? Gilbertine, no doubt, for he visibly brightened as her figure presently appeared clad in a n?glig?e, which emphasised her height, and gave to her whole appearance a womanly sobriety unusual to it.
She had evidently been told what had occurred, for she asked no questions, only leaned in still horror against the doorpost, with her eyes fixed26 on the room within. Sinclair, advancing, held out his arm. She gave no sign of seeing it. Then he spoke27. This seemed to rouse her, for she gave him a grateful look, though she did not take his arm.
“There will be no wedding to-morrow,” fell from her lips in self-communing murmur28.
Only a few minutes had passed since they had started to find Dorothy, but it seemed an age to me. My body remained in the room, but my mind was searching the house for the girl I loved. Where was she hidden? Would she be found huddled but alive in some far-off chamber? Or was another and more dreadful tragedy awaiting us? I wondered that I could not join the search. I wondered that even Gilbertine’s presence could keep Sinclair from doing so. Didn’t he know what in all probability this missing girl had with her? Didn’t he know what I had suffered, was suffering? Ah! what now? She is coming! I can hear them speaking to her. Gilbertine moves from the door, and a young man and woman enter with Dorothy between them.
But what a Dorothy! Years could have made no greater change in her. She looked and she moved like one who is done with life, yet fears the few remaining moments left her. Instinctively29 we fell back before her; instinctively we followed her with our eyes as, reeling a little at the door, she cast a look of inconceivable shrinking, first at her own bed, then at the group of older people watching her with serious looks from the room beyond. As she did so I noted30 that she was still clad in her evening dress of grey, and that there was no more colour on cheek or lip than in the neutral tints31 of her gown.
Was it our consciousness of the relief which Mrs. Lansing’s death, horrible as it was, must bring to this unhappy girl, and of the inappropriateness of any display of grief on her part, which caused the silence with which we saw her pass with forced step and dread1 anticipation32 into the room where that image of dead virulence33 awaited her? Impossible to tell. I could not read my own thoughts. How, then, the thoughts of others!
But thoughts, if we had any, all fled when, after one slow turn of her head towards the bed, this trembling young girl gave a choking shriek, and fell, face down, on the floor. Evidently she had not been prepared for the look which made her aunt’s still face so horrible. How could she have been? Had it not imprinted34 itself upon my mind as the one revolting vision of my life? How, then, if this young and tender-hearted girl had been insensible to it! As her form struck the floor Mr. Armstrong rushed forward; I had not the right. But it was not by his arms she was lifted. Sinclair was before him, and it was with a singularly determined35 look I could not understand, and which made us all fall back, that he raised her and carried her into her own bed, where he laid her gently down. Then, as if not content with this simple attention, he hovered36 over her for a moment, arranging the pillows and smoothing her dishevelled hair. When at last he left her the women rushed forward.
“Not too many of you,” was his final adjuration37, as, giving me a look, he slipped out into the hall.
I followed him immediately. He had gained the moon-lighted corridor near his own door, where he stood awaiting me with something in his hand. As I approached, he drew me to the window and showed me what it was. It was the amethyst38 box, open and empty, and beside it, shining with a yellow instead of a purple light, the little vial void of the one drop which used to sparkle within it.
“I found the vial in the bed with the old woman,” said he. “The box I saw glittering among Dorothy’s locks before she fell. That was why I lifted her.”
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1
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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3
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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7
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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8
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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11
remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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12
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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16
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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17
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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19
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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20
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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countenances
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| n.面容( countenance的名词复数 )；表情；镇静；道义支持 | |
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23
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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24
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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26
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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27
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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28
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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29
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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31
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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32
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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33
virulence
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| n.毒力，毒性；病毒性；致病力 | |
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34
imprinted
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| v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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35
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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36
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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37
adjuration
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| n.祈求，命令 | |
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38
amethyst
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| n.紫水晶 | |
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