The Arm Chair Library No. 79: The Haunted Homestead — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ix my nA # A ee * But Ruth-—,” he mimicked, Crawing out his watch, * Is it tine to go 1” “ The boat starts in fifteen minutes,” gaily, IL was a Woman’s question that came nex . I was tying my bonnet before tus mirror, aut gazing at the reflection therein of my own suber face, with its low forehead and pale obeeks. “Is sue—is Mrs, Rossitor handsome, Grant?” “The handsomest woman I ever saw,” grave- ly. . subtle pang, so sharp and strange that it frightened me, made me turn to him with a quick gesture. “ Love me, Grant,” I cried out. Tue brown eyes dilated, he tucked me under his arm with a light laugh, _ “ Love you! thatis good, little puss, Who should I love, pray, if not you? As if [ was not about to locate myself within ten miles of Black Beach for your especial delight; as if I did not own the fleetest horse in the country; as if you would not be blessed with a view of my visage every fine day—pshaw, Ruth Dar- w! i can hear the clear, rollicking voice still, as it rang down the staircase on that night so fraught with fatality. The carriage rollel away froa the home that | was never to enter again, | looked back and saw its lamps shin- ing through the rain with a tremulous, uncer- tain glimmer. Home!—it had hardly been that after all. The boat lay at the wharf, outlined like a giant thing in the darkness. At the last mo- ment in its crowded cabin, Grant Wyvil bade me good-bye. He tossed back his hair with the petulance of a boy, saying: “ Rossitor will be sure to meet you at the Beach. I wish I could go with you, Ruth, but 1 am to speak to-night—it would be impossible —hang politics! will be at Rossitor House to- morrow—good-night little love.” Gay, dashing and talented, with the worid already recognizing him as a rising star in is itical horizon, was ita wonder that | was proud of this handsome lover of mine?# Yet something in his manner—I could hardly tell what—left me sitting lonely and dissatistied in a throng of figures that Isaw, yet did not see, and shrinking at every motion of the boat, plunging off down the bay as if it had been some hand laid on an unhealed wound. It was a dreary night of scudding clouds and rain drifting —y fromthe east. Along the distant shores red lights winked fitfully in the mist, each like a cyclop’s eye. How the wind wailed acro-s the wide bay! and now and then a frightened young moon looked out of some rift throug the storm-rack far to west- ward, like the face of a ghost. I sat aad waited, The storm beat upon the cabin win- dows, or, lulled for the moment, sig hed across them in faint moanings. Leaning back against the wall I listened until both sight and sound departed together, and in as cramped and uneasy a position as possible, { think I fell be The boat neared Black Beach at miduight. Something awoke me, either an intuitive per- ception of the fact, or the friemdly jerk of aif ROSSITOR HOUSE. 145 i A, aap at ee ee ee ee » — : sume fellow-passenger, The rain, indeed, had ceased; but the wind blew stormily still, and of Black Beach [ could see votniug, save afew low taint outlines, bugging close the chaotic darkness, and a lighthouse on a cliff some dis- tance down the shore, withits fiery eye glar- ae redly across the waves. + Stepped out upon the lanaing, one of many. lhe passengers were crowding out thick aud fast; it Was singular that among them all my attention should have fastened solely upon one figure standing near by, watching the boat disgorge, tall, stately, with his gray cloak fluwering in the wind, He was a handsome man, hardly past thirty: five, with a grave face, clear cut, and delicately dark and careworn. I noticed that the hand which had drawn his cloak together from the wind, gleamed white as a woman’s, ungloved, and with a signet diamond flashiug upon it in a circle of quivering light. ‘* This,” said I to myself, ‘‘ is Judge Rossitor,” He advanced one step toward me, only one, ‘* Miss Darrow ¢” _ [ stopped, looked at him long enough to take in the peculiarities that | have described above, and then I bowed. ‘* Will you take my arm ¢” he said, quickly, “The carriage is waiting near by. Heavens! what a stifling rabble!” The tone was asinpitieut as if [ hid been sole cause of crowd, and waitiisz, and storm. lL accepted his proffered civility, and the result was that | found it next to impossible to keep pace with his long strides, as he stalked through said “ rabble,” like one who felt himself master, dragging me after him, quite helpless and un- resisting. Few there who dit not know him, aud the crowd, parting with that deference that is always paid to rank and wealth, my conductor lifted as nell breathless body into the carriage and sprang in after her. * Drive home !” Lt heard, sharp and quick to the coachman, Then this autocrat of Black B achsubsided into a corner, saivering under his gray cloak, | woked from the window and saw that we were whirling off ona sandy beach road, with low white cottayes nestling along its barren sweep, Presently, outfrom the dusk of the corner opposite,!came a Jow laugh, anda voice grown irresistibly smooth and pleasant. ‘ Perhaps you would like to know who and what I am, Miss Darrow ‘” ‘“T think | kuow you.” ‘Ah? Pardon me, then, for taking such forcible possession of you. The boat was late, [ ha! been waiting at the landing half an hour.” Not feeling particularly sorry, I continued to stare silently from the window. ‘Ugh! what a night!” said Rossitor, with a shrug of the shoulders. That was the extent of eur conversation dur- ing the ride. Hesat grim and stately in his corner, aud having curied myself into @ re- markably small heap in another, [ aided him in preserving silence, till the carriage, turning turough an iron gateway and up an avenus of oplars, warned me tbat we had reached ossitor House. it was an old mansion of gtay stone, which EORMMEOoOKS