Free Classic Ghost Stories by Wilkie Collins, M. R. James, Charles Dickens and Others Page A

forebodings of evil persisted in torturing him. Looking back through his past life, he asked himself if any woman (his late wife of course excepted!) had ever taken the predominant place in his thoughts which Mrs. Zant had assumed—without any discernible reason to account for it? If he had ventured to answer his own question, the reply would have been: Never!
    All the next day he waited at home, in expectation of Mr. John Zant’s promised visit, and waited in vain.
    Towards evening the parlour-maid appeared at the family tea-table, and presented to her master an unusually large envelope sealed with black wax, and addressed in a strange handwriting. The absence of stamp and postmark showed that it had been left at the house by a messenger.
    â€œWho brought this?” Mr. Rayburn asked.
    â€œA lady, sir—in deep mourning.”
    â€œDid she leave any message?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    Having drawn the inevitable conclusion, Mr. Rayburn shut himself up in his library. He was afraid of Lucy’s curiosity and Lucy’s questions, if he read Mrs. Zant’s letter in his daughter’s presence.
    Looking at the open envelope after he had taken out the leaves of writing which it contained, he noticed these lines traced inside the cover:
    My one excuse for troubling you, when I might have consulted my brother-in-law, will be found in the pages which I enclose. To speak plainly, you have been led to fear that I am not in my right senses. For this reason, I now appeal to you. Your dreadful doubt of me, sir, is my doubt too. Read what I have written about myself—and then tell me, I entreat you, which I am: A person who has been the object of a supernatural revelation? or an unfortunate creature who is only fit for imprisonment in a mad-house?
    Mr. Rayburn opened the manuscript. With steady attention, which soon quickened to breathless interest, he read what follows:
    6
THE LADY’S MANUSCRIPT
    Yesterday morning, the sun shone in a clear blue sky—after a succession of cloudy days, counting from the first of the month.
    The radiant light had its animating effect on my poor spirits. I had passed the night more peacefully than usual; undisturbed by the dream, so cruelly familiar to me, that my lost husband is still living—the dream from which I always wake in tears. Never, since the dark days of my sorrow, have I been so little troubled by the self-tormenting fancies and fears which beset miserable women, as when I left the house, and turned my steps towards Kensington Gardens—for the first time since my husband’s death.
    Attended by my only companion, the little dog who had been his favourite as well as mine, I went to the quiet corner of the Gardens which is nearest to Kensington.
    On that soft grass, under the shade of those grand trees, we had loitered together in the days of our betrothal. It was his favourite walk; and he had taken me to see it in the early days of our acquaintance. There, he had first asked me to be his wife. There, we had felt the rapture of our first kiss. It was surely natural that I should wish to see once more a place sacred to such memories as these? I am only twenty-three years old; I have no child to comfort me, no companion of my own age, nothing to love but the dumb creature who is so faithfully fond of me.
    I went to the tree under which we stood, when my dear one’s eyes told his love before he could utter it in words. The sun of that vanished day shone on me again; it was the same noontide hour; the same solitude was round me. I had feared the first effect of the dreadful contrast between past and present. No! I was quiet and resigned. My thoughts, rising higher than earth, dwelt on the better life beyond the grave. Some tears came into my eyes. But I was not unhappy. My memory of all that happened may be trusted, even in trifles which relate only to myself—I was not unhappy.
    The first object that I saw, when my eyes were clear again, was