Beadle's Dime Novels No. 14 — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

82 THE EMERALD NECKLACE, ed her. She arose from the chair and glided toward the door. “ Stay! stay, I mmplere you * only a moment until I speak to you !” She had reached the door, and turning at his cry, smiled upon him with a strange sadness in her smile, and glided out, silent as a phantom. Perhaps it was a phantom! -Pennon sprang to his feet and rushed to the door. He caught sight of a shadowy form descending the broad staircase, he heard the faint rustle of a woman’s silken garments, and she was gone. He followed down into the hall, but no one was there; he hurried out upon the avenue,—no one was in sight; he wandered in every direction but saw no footprint, nor any trace of a visitor. He stepped into the housekeeper’s depart- ment and asked her if she had admitted any one to the house, or seen any one walking in the grounds. y '“No,—not a living soul. Was there robbers about, or what ?” “No robbers. I thought I saw one of my friends in the. hall.” She looked at him curiously, for his manner was of a kind to attract attention ; he observed it, and tried to appear more natural. After a useless search, he returned to his room and sat down before his easel; but the power to work well had vanished, and he could not recall if. “It was her !—and— no, it was not her—what a fool Iam! it was an illusion, of course—yet I am sure it was her,”—thus did he contradict himself. Reason and common-sense forbade him to believe that Clematis Percy had actually been in his room; yet those very senses, whose evidence we are wont to accept as conclu- sive, assured him that she had. ‘He had never seemed to himself to be in a freer, happier, healthier state of mind and body—there was not a single pang left in his wounded finger —he was not a man given to superstitions, and he had never had trances nor walked in his sleep, nor exhibited any ten- dency toward any extraordinary or phenomenal powers) In vain he took up his brushes—every touch which he gave the picture disfigured it; he saw that he must wait until the spirit moved. He walked about his room, he looked out comiclbooks.com