The Argosy — page 223: what you’re looking at

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

206 The Tenant of The Cedars. entrancing notes, and when they ceased I stood, as if spell-bound, longing to hear more of the sweet, unearthly music, At length, when the silence had lasted some moments, I ventured to open the door. ‘The room was dark and empty, the piano closed. As I stood on the threshold looking round, I felt a touch on my arm, and turning with a start, found Underwood at my side. He had been watching me unperceived. He beckoned me into the other room and closed the door before he spoke. Huis face was flushed; his eyes glittering with excitement, and a strange sort of triumph. ‘You have heard it at last!” he breathed. ‘‘ You know now that the sound is no ‘ delusion.’ It is her voice that follows me night and day. Oh, my lady, my queen,” he broke off, ‘‘why do you haunt me? What is it you want of me? If you would but speak instead of mocking me with those sweet piteous songs of yours ——” He sank on to a chair near the table, burying his face in his hands. I set down the lamp and took a seat at his side. ‘‘ When did you first hear it?” I asked, involuntarily speaking in a whisper. He looked up, pushing back the disordered hair from his forehead. ‘‘Tast summer. ‘The first time it was but a faint thin sound, like a distant echo, but every day it grew clearer and nearer, seeming to float in the air around me. It is not only in the house that I hear it, but out of doors in broad daylight, as if she were flitting about the garden singing to herself as she used to do. Sometimes she calls me—‘ Jacques, Jacques!’ and her sweet, low laugh sounds so close that I can’t help turning, half expecting to see her at my side.” I shuddered. ‘I wonder you have kept your senses!” I ex- claimed. “Do you think I am afraid of it? No—her voice is still to me what it always was, the sweetest sound on this side of heaven. It is only in spring and summer, during the months she lived here, that I hear it,’ he continued. ‘It ceases at midnight on the first of September ; breaking off in the middle of a song—the very song she was singing when—when it happened.” I glanced at his face, and something I saw there confirmed a suspicion which had already occurred to me. “Underwood,” I said suddenly, leaning forward with my arms on the table; ‘‘can you honestly assure me that you do not know or suspect who took her life?” He looked at me fixedly a moment, then answered, in a tone of curious composure: ‘I have known all along.” I drew back, and stared at him. ‘‘'Then, why in heaven’s name did you not speak at the time ?” ‘My lips were sealed by a promise.” “Given to whom? Who bound you to silence?” Gomichbooks. co m + § chp d res Fe, Ae “y