Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1889-02-09

sense OF su6ocation in It's density.
stood thus for some moments.
wished had brought light The beating
OF my heart seemed like . companion in
my solitude, and remember laying my
naist upon it to feel its pulsations. Then
slowly. slowly, out Of the thick air, there
! grew upon me horror, an unspeak-
| able, awful Consciousness Of the presence
OF the Invisible which froze my blood.
and chilled my life at its core. My body
| seemed turned to stone. All its activity
/ was paralyzed, and had sought to turn
and nee, 1 knew my muscles would have
failed to do my bidding, and INV feet have
sunk under me. was powerless to open
my lips. Only my mind was free as dir
to receive in every fiber this sense of I'M
| utterdble terror for that instant. Fear
neid dominion over me. Fear, such as l
mad never dreamed of, ruled in every atom
OF my being. The sound of the shutting
OF door resounded in my ears like an
unexpected thing, faint light fitted for
an instant along the wall, and in its mo-
mentary CLEAN l saw a woman's face, q
wicked face. and girls form, a shadow
crouched at my side. The light was gone,
but there still rung in my ears q long, low
sob, like the cry of lost soul. and the
| slckening noise of fall on the stones
/ below.
| 1t must have been some time after this
that Margaret found me sitting on our
stairs below the closed door. How I came
there l do not know. She did not speak
to me, for think she knew by my face
what had happened, and she followed hel
! instinct In treating me much as / had
treated her. AS soon as any power of &C
ton returned to me, resolved upon quit
ting the house instantly. and set about
preparations for our departure with q
feverish activity. I could not be easy so
long as We remained in the building, and
we spent The few days necessary for the
lepacking Of the furniture at Leland's
Hotel, visiting the house as little as pos
sible and never remaining over night.
Margaret went to her mothers to stay till
she could recover from the shock to her
nerves and be fit for work.
knew it would be useless to try and
persuade Mrs. Capel that all she had re-
lated was but the illusions Of an over
wrought imagination. released her,
therefore, from the engagement, and de-.
termined to inspect the building for my
own satisfaction. An old doctor who re-
sided on West Monroe street, in the neigh
borhood, tod me that the last permanent
occupants of the house, before it began to
bear SO evil q reputation, had been two
women, a mother and daughter. The
mother, a widow, owned the place. She
was ierce-tempered, hard woman, who
seemed possessed, as the gossips said, by
o spirit of unnatural hatred toward her
daughter, girl with certain sad beauty
of her own, as the doctor described her to
me, but not right in her mind She was
not an idiot, but lacking" the doctor
termed it. AS she grew into
womanhood her mental deficiencies
increased, and the mother, iercely proud
in her way, could not endure the spectacle
of her child's misfortune. She would
have hidden her away from the world, but
the girl rebelled. There were taunts,
quarrels, sometimes blows, between the
two, and the mother, defiant and furious,
locked her daughter in the rear part of
life played itself out, and here she was
found one morning by the servant, who
slept in remote attic, lying dead at the
foot of the stairs How she came by her
death no one knew. There Was nothing
to directly criminate the mother, and the
inquest that was held resulted in a ver-
dict of accidental death" The mother
herself died soon after, leaving her prop
erty to distant cousin, who reaped little
benefit from the house, since it soon be.
came impossible to let it.
The doctors account seemed to lend
weight to the statement of Mrs. Capel.
entirely disbelieve in the supernatural,
and, after making an examination of the
premises, was on the point of leaving,
when I noticed panel in the open door
that had peculiar surface. AS I stood
watching it, while magistrates were fall
ing, the outlines of two figures became
more and more visible. One was that Of
a middle-aged woman, with a hard, fierce
face, while the other was that of a young
g.rl in o crouching attitude. When the
door was closed the panel could not be
seen except from the extension. I exam
ICED the framework Of the door, and found
it to be in rickety condition. A gust of
wind from special quarter striking
GENTLY aslant to free the bolt from
the clasp and allow the door to
swing open into the hall, and reveal
the painted panel. On subsequent in
uuiry, I found that the extension had at
one time been occupied by On artist. who,
doubtless, hearing of the tragedy as re-
lated by the doctor, had painted the scene
on the panel. also discovered that the
artist had been making experiments with
phosphorescent paint, and also with 3
paint that changed color at various de-
grees of temperature. had the frame
work of the door repaired and the panel
taken out, and since then no tenant has
come to me with ghost stories. have
the paael at home in my parlor. In the
dark, when the weather is slightly damp,
the two figures come out very distinctly,
but ut times they are invisible. The
luminous paint used is now quite COM
mon, but the artist who invented it has no
idea of the supernatural sensation this
early experiment made on the tenants of
the Halsted Street Haunted House..
POliteneSs Of Clerks.