Every morning she came again, and the picture grew beneath my hand till I almost loved it. There was something wild and strange about it for all the graceful quiet of the figure before me. I never had so still a model: she never wanted to move, and her very words came from her lips without seeming to make them stir. The subject she liked speaking of best was the Standish child. She never wearied of hearing all I could tell about him; she seemed to forget herself and all else gazing at this picture, and sometimes she would draw me on to tell her of his father’s great love for him, which it seemed had almost passed into a proverb in the country. I so often heard people attacking him for “doating” on his boy.
We were discussing this subject as usual one morning, about a week after her first appearance in my room.
“I really believe,” I was saying, “Standish makes a perfect idol of that boy!”
“If we have idols, we shall suffer through them,” replied my visitor, in her calm, quiet voice.
“Ah! I fear there is only too much truth in that,” I answered; “it is not only the heathen who require to have their idols taken away from I them. We too—almost every one of us—have something—"
“Frank! who in the name of goodness are you talking to?”
I looked up, and saw Standish’s amused questioning face looking in at the open window. To spring forward and place myself between the lady and him was the impulse of the moment.
“What brings you out so early, my good friend?” I said, to parry the question.
“The natural restlessness of the individual, I suppose. Seriously, Frank, who were you talking to! I have heard you morning after morning as I passed the window, but have had too much discretion to look in before, thinking I might disturb you.”
“You can’t come in—don’t come in. Lady Standish never sits so early.”
I hastened to interpose, thinking perhaps he was jealous.
“Lady Standish—nonsense—come, who was it, Frank!” and placing his hand on the window-bench, he, to my extreme discomfiture, vaulted in. I looked round in terror at the thought of my visitor’s dismay.
“It is not my fault, madam; this is Sir Alfred Stan—"
I was spared the trouble of explanation.
She had disappeared.
“Frank,” exclaimed the agitated voice of Standish, “in the name of Heaven, what is this?” He was standing opposite the uncovered picture I had been interrupted in.
“That—oh—a—a fancy—an idea,” stammered I.
“Idea! Fancy! Oh, Isabel!” was the reply.
Isabel—the mystery was explained. Yes, I had seen that face before, in the miniature: but she, what was she? and what was I? I staggered and sank down on a chair.
“What is the matter, Frank? Nay, are you vexed at my coming in and discovering it before it was finished? Were you doing it for me, old fellow! It was very kind of you. But fancy being able to do that from memory, and only of a picture too! Oh, Frank! can you wonder if that one short look at her picture so impressed her on your memory, that the reality can never, never fade from mine!”
He paused, overcome. What could I say! I gasped for breath.
“It was not all imagination,” I began: then remembering my promise to her, stopped. “Alfred, promise me you will not come here again—not before breakfast, till the picture is finished; then—"
“Why, Frank, what is the matter with you? You look so queer, and ‘not come here:’ what do you mean! You little know the pleasure it is to me to gaze at her.”
“But you must not; you must not,” I repeated; “at any rate, not till it is finished. Give me air, Standish.”
“Why, old man, you are taking it quite to heart! Well, till the picture is finished, I will try and keep away.”
I did not close my eyes that night. Had they played me false the whole of the past week, and was it all a delusion; or was she—I could not mould my thoughts into shape. After a sleepless night I rose, still earlier than before, anticipating that it being the day of the great dinner party, the stir in the house would begin more betimes than usual.
Early as I was, she was before me. I felt her presence before I opened the door. She was standing in her old attitude before the picture of the child Alfred. She turned slowly to me as I muttered some incoherent greeting—some excuse for our having been disturbed the day before.
“It matters little to me,” she said: “nothing matters much; my errand is nearly done.”
Once more she placed herself as before; once more I began my work, and now I began to plead with her to make herself known to Sir Alfred.
“He recognised your picture,” I urged. “I fear he feels only too much for you as it is—for your unhappy fate; for his sake, for the sake of his future peace, do not hide yourself any longer from him: let him know the truth, and then leave.”
“The truth!” she repeated.
“The truth!” echoed another voice; and Standish was again by my side.
“Frank, my dear fellow! what are you talking about! Are you unwell?”
I looked from him to her: she did not move.
“No, Alfred,” I said; “but see, your lost Isabel is there!”
“Frank!” repeated Standish, in apparent astonishment, “what are you saying?”
“I have promised to keep her secret,” I continued, “but you have broken your word, so I must forfeit mine. Have you nothing to say to her!”
I waved my hand towards her. He stared strangely round.
“I see nothing,” he said.
“He does not see me,” the calm voice of Isabel said, breaking the silence. “He can neither see nor hear me. Tell him from me, the message I come to bring. I come from an unhallowed grave to warn him.”
