第91章

He was begrimed and blackened from head to foot, and carried a pailful of coals and wood. Reading readily her look, he made haste to explain.

"I have been on the roof for the last hour," he said.

"What were you doing there," she asked, with a strange mingling of expressions, "in such a night?"

"I heard the music, my lady--the ghost-music, you know, that haunts the castle, and--"

"I heard it too," she murmured, with a look almost of terror. "I have often heard it before, but never so loud as to-night. Have you any notion about it, Mr. Grant?"

"None whatever--except that I am nearly sure it comes from somewhere about the roof."

"If you could clear up the mystery!"

"I have some hope of it.--You are not frightened, my lady?"

She had caught hold of the back of a chair.

"Do sit down. I will get you some water."

"No, no; I shall be right in a moment!" she answered. "Your stair has taken my breath away. But my uncle is in such a strange condition that I could not help coming to you."

"I have seen him myself, more than once, very strange."

"Will you come with me?"

"Anywhere."

"Come then."

She left the room, and led the way, by the light of her dim taper, down the stair. About the middle of it, she stopped at a door, and turning said, with a smile like that of a child, and the first untroubled look Donal had yet seen upon her face--"How delightful it is to be taken out of fear! I am not the least afraid now!"

"I am very glad," said Donal. "I should like to kill fear; it is the shadow that follows at the heels of wrong.--Do you think the music has anything to do with your uncle's condition?"

"I do not know."

She turned again hastily, and passing through the door, entered a part of the house with which Donal had no acquaintance. With many bewildering turns, she led him to the great staircase, down which she continued her course. The house was very still: it must surely be later than he had thought--only there were so few servants in it for its extent! His guide went very fast, with a step light as a bird's: at one moment he had all but lost sight of her in the great curve. At the room in which Donal first saw the earl, she stopped.

The door was open, but there was no light within. She led him across to the door of the little chamber behind. A murmur, but no light, came from it. In a moment it was gone, and the deepest silence filled the world. Arctura entered. One step within the door she stood still, and held high her taper. Donal looked in sideways.

A small box was on the floor against the foot of the farthest wall, and on the box, in a long dressing gown of rich faded stuff, the silk and gold in which shone feebly in the dim light, stood the tall meagre form of the earl, with his back to the door, his face to the wall, close to it, and his arms and hands stretched out against it, like one upon a cross. He stood without moving a muscle or uttering a sound. What could it mean? Donal gazed in a blank dismay.

Not a minute had passed, though it was to him a long and painful time, when the murmuring came again. He listened as to a voice from another world--a thing terrible to those whose fear dwells in another world. But to Donal it was terrible as a voice from no other world could have been; it came from an unseen world of sin and suffering--a world almost a negation of the eternal, a world of darkness and the shadow of death. But surely there was hope for that world yet!--for whose were the words in which its indwelling despair grew audible?