CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
The sun has "dropped down," and the "day is dead." The silence and calmof coming night are over everything. The shadowy twilight lies softly onsleeping flowers and swaying boughs, on quiet fountains—the marblebasins of which gleam snow-white in the uncertain light—on the glimpseof the distant ocean seen through the giant elms. A floating mist hangsin the still warm air, making heaven and earth mingle in one sweetconfusion.
The ivy creeping up the ancient walls of the castle is rustling andwhispering as the evening breeze sweeps over it. High up the tendrilsclimb, past mullioned windows and quaint devices, until they reach evento the old tower, and twine lovingly round it, and push through the longapertures in the masonry of the walls of the haunted chamber.
It is here that the shadows cast their heaviest gloom. All this cornerof the old tower is wrapped in darkness, as though to obscure the sceneof terrible crimes of past centuries.
Ghosts of dead-and-gone lords and ladies seem to peer out mysteriouslyfrom the openings in this quaint chamber, wherein no servant, male orfemale, of the castle has ever yet been known to set foot. It is full ofdire horrors to them, and replete with legends of by-gone days andgrewsome sights ghastly enough to make the stoutest heart quail.
In the days of the Stuarts an old earl had hanged himself in that room,rather than face the world with dishonor attached to his name; andearlier still a beauteous dame, fair but frail, had been incarceratedthere, and slowly starved to death by her relentless lord. There waseven in the last century a baronet—the earldom had been lost to theDynecourts during the Commonwealth—who, having quarreled with hisfriend over a reigning belle, had smitten him across the cheek with hisglove, and then challenged him to mortal combat. The duel had beenfought in the luckless chamber, and had only ended with the death ofboth combatants; the blood stains upon the flooring were large and deep,and to this day the boards bear silent witness to the sanguinarycharacter of that secret fight.
Just now, standing outside the castle in the warmth and softness of thedying daylight, one can hardly think of by-gone horrors, or aught thatis sad and sinful.
There is an air of bustle and expectancy within-doors that betokenscoming guests; the servants are moving to and fro noiselessly butbusily, and now and then the stately housekeeper passes from room toroom uttering commands and injunctions to the maids as she goes. No lessoccupied and anxious is the butler, as he surveys the work of thefootmen. It is so long since the old place has had a resident master,and so much longer still since guests have been invited to it, that thehousehold are more than ordinarily excited at the change now