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Page 4
"Consumptive?"
"Not in the least."
"I am glad to hear that. She is a charming creature, Mrs.
Crayford. She interests me indescribably. If I was only twenty
years younger--perhaps (as I am not twenty years younger) I had
better not finish the sentence? Is it indiscreet, my dear lady,
to inquire what _is_ the matter with her?"
"It might be indiscreet, on the part of a stranger," said Mrs.
Crayford. "An old friend like you may make any inquiries. I wish
I could tell you what is the matter with Clara. It is a mystery
to the doctors themselves. Some of the mischief is due, in my
humble opinion, to the manner in which she has been brought up."
"Ay! ay! A bad school, I suppose."
"Very bad, Captain Helding. But not the sort of school which you
have in your mind at this moment. Clara's early years were spent
in a lonely old house in the Highlands of Scotland. The ignorant
people about her were the people who did the mischief which I
have just been speaking of. They filled her mind with the
superstitions which are still respected as truths in the wild
North--especially the superstition called the Second Sight."
"God bless me!" cried the captain, "you don't mean to say she
believes in such stuff as that? In these enlightened times too!"
Mrs. Crayford looked at her partner with a satirical smile.
"In these enlightened times, Captain Helding, we only believe in
dancing tables, and in messages sent from the other world by
spirits who can't spell! By comparison with such superstitions as
these, even the Second Sight has something--in the shape of
poetry--to recommend it, surely? Estimate for yourself," she
continued seriously, "the effect of such surroundings as I have
described on a delicate, sensitive young creature--a girl with a
naturally imaginative temperament leading a lonely, neglected
life. Is it so very surprising that she should catch the
infection of the superstition about her? And is it quite
incomprehensible that her nervous system should suffer
accordingly, at a very critical period of her life?"
"Not at all, Mrs. Crayford--not at all, ma'am, as you put it.
Still it is a little startling, to a commonplace man like me, to
meet a young lady at a ball who believes in the Second Sight.
Does she really profess to see into the future? Am I to
understand that she positively falls into a trance, and sees
people in distant countries, and foretells events to come? That
is the Second Sight, is it not?"
"That is the Second Sight, captain. And that is, really and
positively, what she does."
"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us?"
"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us."
The captain waited a little--letting the new flood of information
which had poured in on him settle itself steadily in his mind.
This process accomplished, the Arctic explorer proceeded
resolutely on his way to further discoveries.
"May I ask, ma'am, if you have ever seen her in a state of trance
with your own eyes?" he inquired.
"My sister and I both saw her in the trance, little more than a
month since," Mrs. Crayford replied. "She had been nervous and
irritable all the morning; and we took her out into the garden to
breathe the fresh air. Suddenly, without any reason for it, the
color left her face. She stood between us, insensible to touch,
insensible to sound; motionless as stone, and cold as death in a
moment. The first change we noticed came after a lapse of some
minutes. Her hands began to move slowly, as if she was groping in
the dark. Words dropped one by one from her lips, in a lost,
vacant tone, as if she was talking in her sleep. Whether what she
said referred to past or future I cannot tell you. She spoke of
persons in a foreign country--perfect strangers to my sister and
to me. After a little interval, she suddenly became silent. A
momentary color appeared in her face, and left it again. Her eyes
closed--her feet failed her--and she sank insensible into our
arms."
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