Year: 1871

years. The dust lay thick on the clumsy
old-fashioned furniture, and the spiders had
festooned their webs over the windows
Miss Joanna made some half-muttered
apology for the uninviting aspect of the
room they so seldom had company that
she had got into the habit of neglecting the
rooms which they did not use. Even the
wood-ire, burning in the open fireplace,
did not take away anything of the dreary,
uncanny look of the apartment. The
shadows of the freight took ghastly
shapes on the walls; outside the wind
moaned and walled through the pines like
human voice.


Sleep would not come at Syl's bidding.
She lay and listened to the wind, and
watched the wavering shadows ON the wall
that now were ghastly faces, and now ghost
ly beckoning hands, while the night wore
slowly away. How could it be SO long, she
wondered, ten was almost gone when she
left the ballroom in the Allston Hotel?-
Suddenly the heard slow soft footballs in
the hall, then the door of her room swung
noiselessly open. Syl was not sure wheth-
er she was awake or dreaming, when
she saw the figure that entered-a little old
woman with yellow wrinkled face, and
white hair falling around it. AS she came
before the fire, SO that its light fell on her
face, Syl recognized her. 1t was Derrick's
mother. She had seen her often in child
hood, but she had changed fearfully since
then. If she had seen her anywhere else
she would not have known her, Syl said to
herself.


She went up to the bed and looked keen
ly, yet with sort of terror in her face, at
Syl The blood grew cold in Syls veins,
she had no strength to move or cry out.


"It isn't him nor his ghost" the old
woman murmured. You needn't be
afraid they wouldn't kill a little girl like
you. But there has been blood spilled in
this house-in this very room! ~ Her voice
sank to tragic whisper on the last words,
and then she moaned and rung her hands,
and paced up and down the room.


Syl felt as if some horrible nightmare
were upon her. And yet she knew it was
reality; she was alone with this mad
woman, and with no power to call for help.


She came back to the bed soon, and bent
her lips to SyPs ear.


"There's blood on those walls beside the
bed They had it papered over. but paper
wont stay on it; you can see how it has
started off. l pulled up one corner the
other day, and 1 saw the blood Joanna
doesn't know that come here she would
kill me if she did she doesn't like to come
herself, and she isn't afraid of anything
earthly. But this room is full of ghosts
they are walking around here, and crying
and groaning all night. I thought you
were one Of them, at first. He is here
John Lyford, with that great cash in his
throat, and the blood streaming out-riv-
ers and rivers of blood Is it not very
strange that he can come back when he


is buried so deep? way down at the bot
tom of the old well ; you know where the
old well is, out by the pine-grove. They
carried him out there-Derrick and Joan


ma. 1t was hard, when he was only three


miles from home wasn't it But the old
well is deep, and no body will ever know it.
= And Derrick is rich man, now, you know,


and nobody will ever know where John


Lyford is. Derrick has built new house
he don't like to live here, because John
Lyford's ghost comes here, and he is going
to marry John Lyford's niece-little Syl


Shepard. She don't see the blood on his
hands nobody can see it but me, Joanna
: says but there it is, dripping, dripping all


the time -


She moaned and wrung her hands franti-


cally, and then talked dincoherently'and excl
tedly. Syl, straining her ears to the ut
: most could not catch an intelligible word.


All her terror had vanished in the excite


meet of the fearful discovery she had made
$ Was it truth, or only the fancies of this dis
ordered brain?


' The gray light of dawn was just begin
ming to stream into the window, and the
: old woman took her departure, first coming
, to the bedside again, and looking, with
that same terrified expression, at Syl, as il
not yet sure that she was not ghost.
Syl was not bewildered nor frightened.


now. She was filled with amazement and
< horror, but her brain had never been clear
: er. How plainly the story had been told.
a And there was not shadow of doubt of its
t truth in her mind, A hundred trifies
: that she.h scarcely noticed before, crowd.
, ed up in her memory to confirm the story.
Derricks nervousness at unexpected foot