Wylder's Hand. Sheridan Le Fanu

was a small house, this Redman's Farm, but very silent, for all that, when the day's work was over; and very solemn, too, the look-out from the window among the colonnades of tall old trees, on the overshadowed earth, and through them into deepest darkness; the complaining of the lonely stream far down is the only sound in the air.

      There was but one imperfect vista, looking down the glen, and this afforded no distant view—only a downward slant in the near woodland, and a denser background of forest rising at the other side, and to-night mistily gilded by the yellow moon-beams, the moon herself unseen.

      Rachel had opened her window-shutters, as was her wont when the moon was up, and with her small white hands on the window-sash, looked into the wooded solitudes, lost in haunted darkness in every direction but one, and there massed in vaporous and discoloured foliage, hardly more distinct, or less solemn.

      'Poor old Tamar says her prayers, and reads her Bible; I wish I could. How often I wish it. That good, simple vicar—how unlike his brother—is wiser, perhaps, than all the shrewd people that smile at him. He used to talk to me; but I've lost that—yes—I let him understand I did not care for it, and so that good influence is gone from me—graceless creature. No one seemed to care, except poor old Tamar, whether I ever said a prayer, or heard any good thing; and when I was no more than ten years old, I refused to say my prayers for her. My poor father. Well, Heaven help us all.'

      So she stood in the same sad attitude, looking out upon the shadowy scene, in a forlorn reverie.

      Her interview with Dorcas remained on her memory like an odd, clear, half-horrible dream. What a dazzling prospect it opened for Stanley; what a dreadful one might it not prepare for Dorcas. What might not arise from such a situation between Stanley and Mark Wylder, each in his way a worthy representative of the ill-conditioned and terrible race whose blood he inherited? Was this doomed house of Brandon never to know repose or fraternity?

      Was it credible? Had it actually occurred, that strange confession of Dorcas Brandon's? Could anything be imagined so mad—so unaccountable? She reviewed Stanley in her mind's eye. She was better acquainted, perhaps, with his defects than his fascinations, and too familiar with both to appreciate at all their effect upon a stranger.

      'What can she see in him? There's nothing remarkable in Stanley, poor fellow, except his faults. There are much handsomer men than he, and many as amusing—and he with no estate.'

      She had heard of charms and philtres. How could she account for this desperate hallucination?

      Rachel was troubled by a sort of fear to-night, and the low fever of an undefined expectation was upon her. She turned from the window, intending to write two letters, which she had owed too long—young ladies' letters—for Miss Lake, like many of her sex, as I am told, had several little correspondences on her hands; and as she turned, with a start, she saw old Tamar standing in the door-way, looking at her.

      'Tamar!'

      'Yes, Miss Rachel.'

      'Why do you come so softly, Tamar? Do you know, you frightened me?'

      'I thought I'd look in, Miss, before I went to bed, just to see if you wanted anything.'

      'No—nothing, thank you, dear Tamar.'

      'And I don't think, Miss Rachel, you are quite well to-night, though you are so gay—you're pale, dear; and there's something on your mind. Don't be thinking about Master Stanley; he's out of the army now, and I'm thankful for it; and make your mind easy about him; and would not it be better, dear, you went to your bed, you rise so early.'

      'Very true, good old Tamar, but to-night I must write a letter—not a long one, though—and I assure you, I'm quite well. Good-night, Tamar.'

      Tamar stood for a moment with her odd weird look upon her, and then bidding her good-night, glided stiffly away, shutting the door.

      So Rachel sat down to her desk and began to write; but she could not get into the spirit of her letter; on the contrary, her mind wandered away, and she found herself listening, every now and then, and at last she fancied that old Tamar, about whom that dream, and her unexpected appearance at the door, had given her a sort of spectral feeling that night, was up and watching her; and the idea of this white sentinel outside her door excited her so unpleasantly, that she opened it, but found no Tamar there; and then she revisited the kitchen, but that was empty too, and the fire taken down. And, finally, she passed into the old woman's bed-chamber, whom she saw, her white head upon her pillow, dreaming again, perhaps. And so, softly closing her door, she left her to her queer visions and deathlike slumber.

      Chapter XVII

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      RACHEL LAKE SEES WONDERFUL THINGS BY MOONLIGHT FROM HER WINDOW.

      Though Rachel was unfit for letter-writing, she was still more unfit for slumber. She leaned her temple on her hand, and her rich light hair half covered her fingers, and her amazing interview with Dorcas was again present with her, and the same feeling of bewilderment. The suddenness and the nature of the disclosures were dream-like and unreal, and the image of Dorcas remained impressed upon her sight; not like Dorcas, though the same, but something ghastly, wan, glittering, and terrible, like a priestess at a solitary sacrifice.

      It was late now, not far from one o'clock, and around her the terrible silence of a still night. All those small sounds lost in the hum of midday life now came into relief—a ticking in the wainscot, a crack now and then in the joining of the furniture, and occasionally the tap of a moth against the window pane from outside, sounds sharp and odd, which made her wish the stillness of the night were not so intense.

      As from her little table she looked listlessly through the window, she saw against the faint glow of the moonlight, the figure of a man who seized the paling and vaulted into the flower garden, and with a few swift, stumbling strides over the flower-beds, reached the window, and placing his pale face close to the glass, she saw his eyes glittering through it; he tapped—or rather beat on the pane with his fingers—and at the same time he said, repeatedly: 'Let me in; let me in.'

      Her first impression, when she saw this person cross the little fence at the road-side was, that Mark Wylder was the man. But she was mistaken; the face and figure were Stanley Lake's.

      She would have screamed in the extremity of her terror, but that her voice for some seconds totally failed her; and recognising her brother, though like Rhoda, in Holy Writ, she doubted whether it was not his angel, she rose up, and with an awful ejaculation, she approached the window.

      'Let me in, Radie; d—you, let me in,' he repeated, drumming incessantly on the glass. There was no trace now of his sleepy jeering way. Rachel saw that something was very wrong, and beckoned him toward the porch in silence, and having removed the slender fastenings of the door, it opened, and he entered in a rush of damp night air. She took him by the hand, and he shook hers mechanically, like a man rescued from shipwreck, and plainly not recollecting himself well.

      'Stanley, dear, what's the matter, in Heaven's name?' she whispered, so soon as she had got him into her little drawing-room.

      'He has done it; d—him, he has done it,' gasped Stanley Lake.

      He looked in her face with a glazed and ashy stare. His hat remained on his head, overshadowing his face; and his boots were soiled with clay, and his wrapping coat marked, here and there, with the green of the stems and branches of trees, through which he had made his way.

      'I see, Stanley, you've had a scene with Mark Wylder; I warned you of your danger—you have had the worst of it.'

      'I spoke to him. He took a course I did not expect. I'm not well.'

      'You've broken your promise. I see you have used me. How base; how stupid!'

      'How could I tell he was such a fiend?'

      'I told you how it would be. He has frightened you,' said Rachel, herself frightened.