, 1889-12-15

80 an " NAV LII bSAL LAODl
the easement; a greater power than mine,
a mysterious desire, held me rooted to the
spot. I seemed to wait. For WHAT j
did not know-for something which was
to happen.
heard a slight noise beneath the win
dow and lowered my head. Along the
wall, something, knew not what-white,
f~urtive, swift, like a white cloth In the
wind-moved toward the pool. 1t was a
woman Oh her ghost. One instant this
vague form stopped and turned back.
By the pale ray of the single star 1 saw
a face and recognized it. Had 1 gone
mad! 1 recognized the face of the por-
trait. That face was Madeleine'sl
While she approached the pool the
wind must have shifted, for the reeds,
which just now had leaned from the side
of my window, bent down now to meet
the young girl, and toward her reached
the long arms of the Shadow Graded on
the reed tips. Madeleine seemed to hest
tate, a prey to violent emotion. Now she
started toward the phantom of the pool
now she stood motionless and seemed
about to retrace her steps; but soon she
took up her interrupted course, and
reached the spot among the interlacing
trees, the obscure and indefinite line
where land and water met. At the edge
of the pool, almost within reach of the
fantastic arms which strained toward her
as if to enfold her, she stopped.
In the heavens there was but a single
star; there was a single star, too, in the
pool. 1 was not dreaming, for 1 noted
that.
Long, long she stood undecided, and
sometimes she seemed to wish to fly to
the house; but ~oftener, lost, shivering in
the breeze, in the garb of death or of a
bride, she held out her arms to the shadow
which silently called her.
AT last she threw herself into the ter
rible pool. The water must be up to her
waist, for 1 saw only the whiteness of her
breast. She advanced ever toward the
Shadow, and the Shadow came to meet
her. Then / saw only her head, appear
Ing from time to time between the reeds
then l saw nothing.
But the rushes ratified more d~olorously,
twisted, bent, pushed aside; the phantom
which followed the movement of their
tips writhed SO that his chest shrank
away from one side, while his legs grew
long on the other, and his arms, as IL
they enlaced in the depths some prey
caught at last, disappeared all at once in
a mighty parting of the reeds.
Madeleine had drowned herself in his
black, awful pool. 1 had not seen her,
but surely l would nave heard her cry
out if Ii terrible water had not filled
her mouth. Oh; horrible death!-her
feet sinking in the humid slime of the
pool and her hands vainly clutching at
the elusive support of the rushesl Little
by little the motion became more rare,
more c~onvulsive, less prolonged; Made
leine was dead beyond a doubt. Anew
the wind alone agitated the great, noisy
grasses, and l saw the constant phantom
slowly reform itself on the surface of the
greenish blackness.
The next day at breakfast 1 ate little
and spoke scarcely at all. The old stew
ard asked when it would suit me to in
spect the estate.
'lmmediately," / replied, ''for 1 leave
this evening"
As we started toward the pool, /
noticed in the forest an old piece of
ruined wall.
what is that?'' 1 asked.
sit is all that is left of an ancient
chapel" replied Charter; your father
greatly admired the stained glass win
dow, which represents an apostle stretch
ing his arms toward heaven. When the
rises behind the window, it casts
the image of the apostle on the reeds of
the pool. Sometimes, in the night, it is
terrible"
As Charter said this, l felt my legs
brushed by something ~furtive, soft and
light, as if n cat had rubbed against me.
1t was IA napkin, still damp, detached
by the wind from a cord where linen
hung to dry a few steps from us, be,
tween two trees before the house.
"Well," said l to myself, 81 must
confess that the fever and wakefulness
have played the DOL with me. nave
taken for u woman in white some sheet
or garment borne by the wind, and for
u phantom the reflection of a stained
window on the reeds" And 1 began to
laugh, to reassure myself completely.
But l returned to Paris that evening.
Three years passed. 1 had sold The
Alders to an industrial company which
intended to drain the marshes. | had
given no thought to my %sojourn at the
melancholy chateau, except now and
again ON a sleepless night, when one
morning, in a journal opened at hazard,
/ read the following:
In the unhealthy district of - whose lnhabi.
tants already begin to enjoy better health, thanks
to the draining of the marshes by a celebrated
philanthropic society, there still remains a vast
pool which forms part OF the estate known as
The Alders. This pool is famous In the legends of
the country. Each night, it is said, a gigantic
phantom is to be seen, sleeping lightly on the tips
of the reeds. Some enlightened persons having
supposed that this phantom was nothing but the
reflection of an ancient stained glass window in a
wall nearby the wall was demolished; but, by the
report of the people of the place. the phantom has
not cedised to appear every night
at has not ceased to appear!' l re-
peated, with a shudder, and 1 read on
with a feverish eye:
However that may be, recently, while the work
men labored at the draining OF the pool, one of
them, in rolling some stones from the bank near
est NJ. CHARTERS house, discovered among the
reeds, deeply imbedded in the mud, a skeleton
| absolutely stripped of flesh; it is supposed that It
is the skeleton of a young woman whose death
must have taken place three or four years ago.
Then it was not a piece of inen flying
/ in the wind that na1a md basitatip,r