Cruel As The Grave

"'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.