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Page 2
"Tea--nonsense!" responds Sir Adrian. "There's nothing like champagne as
a pick-me-up. I'll send you tea also; but, take my advice, and try the
champagne."
"Oh, thank you, I shall so much prefer my tea!" Mrs. Talbot declares,
with a graceful little shrug of her shoulders, at which her friend Miss
Delmaine laughs aloud.
"I accept your advice, Sir Adrian," she says, casting a mischievous
glance at him from under her long lashes. "And--yes, Dora will take
champagne too--when it comes."
"Naughty girl!" exclaims Mrs. Talbot, with a little flickering smile.
Dora Talbot seldom smiles, having learned by experience that her
delicate face looks prettier in repose. "Come, then, Sir Adrian," she
adds, "let us enter your enchanted castle."
The servants by this time have taken in all their luggage--that is, as
much as they have been able to bring in the carriage; and now the two
ladies walk up the steps and enter the hall, their host beside them.
Mrs. Talbot, who has recovered her spirits a little, is chattering
gayly, and monopolizing Sir Adrian to the best of her ability, whilst
Miss Delmaine is strangely silent, and seems lost in a kind of pleased
wonder as she gazes upon all her charming surroundings.
The last rays of light are streaming in through the stained-glass
windows, rendering the old hall full of mysterious beauty. The grim
warriors in their coats of mail seem, to the entranced gaze of Florence
Delmaine, to be making ready to spring from the niches which hold them.
Waking from her dream as she reaches the foot of the stone staircase,
she says abruptly, but with a lovely smile playing round her mouth--
"Surely, Sir Adrian, you have a ghost in this beautiful old place, or
a secret staircase, or at least a bogy of some sort? Do not spoil the
romantic look of it by telling me you have no tale of terror to impart,
no history of a ghostly visitant who walks these halls at the dead of
night."
"We have no ghost here, I am sorry to say," answers Sir Adrian,
laughing. "For the first time I feel distressed and ashamed that it
should be so. We can only boast a haunted chamber; but there are certain
legends about it, I am proud to say, the bare narration of which would
make even the stoutest quail."
"Good gracious--how distinctly unpleasant!" exclaims Mrs. Talbot, with
a nervous and very effective shudder.
"How distinctly delicious, you mean!" puts in Miss Delmaine. "Sir
Adrian, is this chamber anywhere near where I shall sleep?"
"Oh, no; you need not be afraid of that!" answers Dynecourt hastily.
"I am not afraid," declares the girl saucily. "I have all my life been
seeking an adventure of some sort. I am tired of my prosaic existence.
I want to know what dwellers in the shadowy realms of ghost-land are
like."
"Dear Sir Adrian, do urge her not to talk like that; it is positively
wicked," pleads Dora Talbot, glancing at him beseechingly.
"Miss Delmaine, you will drive Mrs. Talbot from my house if you persist
in your evil courses," says Sir Adrian, laughing again. "Desist, I pray
you!"
"Are you afraid, Dora?" asks Florence merrily. "Then keep close to me.
I can defy all evil spirits, I have spells and charms."
"You have indeed!" puts in Sir Adrian, in a tone so low that only she
can hear it. "And, knowing this, you should be merciful."
Though she can not hear what he says, yet Mrs. Talbot can see he is
addressing Florence, and marks with some uneasiness the glance that
passes from his eyes to hers. Breaking quickly into the conversation,
she says timidly, laying her hand on her host's arm--
"This shocking room you speak of will not be near mine?"
"In another wing altogether," Sir Adrian replies reassuringly. "Indeed
it is so far from this part of the castle that one might be safely
incarcerated there and slowly starved to death without any one of the
household being a bit the wiser. It is in the north wing in the old
tower, a portion of the building that has not been in use for over fifty
years."
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