"'Yes, love, I dare. I tell you that what you saw was an optical
illusion.' "'--But what I felt?' "'--Was a slight--a very slight attack of catalepsy. Both the vision and
the fit, dear, took their rise in some abnormal state of the nervous
system,' said Philip Dubarry; and feeling almost pleased with his own
explanation of the mystery, he tried to persuade himself that it was the
true one."
"But his wife turned her face to the wall, saying, however.
"'Well, at any rate, I am glad that the girl in the red cloak is not
flesh and blood, Phil. I would rather she should be an 'optical
illusion' or a fit of 'catalepsy,' or even a 'spectre,' than a
sweetheart of yours, as I first took, her to be.
"'Be not afraid. You have no living rival, Alicia,' answered her husband.
"And the reconciliation between the husband and the wife was complete
from that time forth.
"But somehow the condition of the lady was worse than before.
"She was haunted.
"She knew herself to be haunted; but whether by a spectral illusion or a
real spectre, she could not know. In the glow of the fire light, in the
shadow of the bed-curtains in the illuminated drawing-room, on the dark
staircase, wherever and whenever she found herself alone, the vision of
the girl in the red cloak crossed her path. She did not speak to it, or
try to stop it again. She did not wish to risk another such an electric
shock as should 'cast her shuddering on her face.' But her health wasted
under the trial. Her nerves failed. She grew fearful of being left alone
for an instant; nothing would induce her to go into any room in the
house without an attendant. She contracted a habit of looking fearfully
over her shoulder, and sometimes suddenly screaming.
"Nor was the mistress of the house the only sufferer from this 'abnormal
state of the nervous system,' as the master of the house preferred to
call the mystery. The servants grew so much afraid to move about the
building alone, that their usefulness was much impaired. And at length
one after another ran away, and took to the woods and mountain caves,
preferring to starve or beg rather than live in luxury in the haunted
house. New servants were procured to supply the places of the old ones,
until the latter could be brought back; but none of them stayed long;
nothing could induce them to remain in the 'haunted house.' The story of
the gipsy girl's ghost got around in the neighborhood. Not all the
despotic power of Mr. Dubarry could prevent this. The house came to be
pointed out and avoided by the ignorant and superstitious, as a haunted
and accursed spot. Even the more intelligent and enlightened portion of
the community gradually forsook it; for it was not very agreeable to
visit a family where the mistress was so full of 'flaws and starts'
that, even at the head of her own table, she would often startle the
whole company by suddenly looking over her right shoulder and uttering a
piercing scream.