“O Erd, O Sonne!      O Glück, O Lust!
  O Lieb. O Liebe!
     So golden Sch?n
  Wie Morganwolken
     Auf jenen H?hn.”
 
G?THE.
 
 
 
RALPH called early the next morning, as he had promised. He was relieved to find, by Marion’s account, that Sybil was fairly well, and that there appeared no necessity for sending for Dr. Bailey. At Sybil’s earnest request her uncle went in to see her, and remained with her some time. When he returned to the drawing-room, he gave Marion and Mrs. Archer, who had just made her appearance two hours earlier than usual, thanks to her curiosity, a full account of the whole mysterious affair, which, with the additional light thrown upon it by Sybil’s communications this morning, he said he had now got to the bottom of.
 
This was what he had to tell.
 
Immediately on the receipt of Marion’s letter (this part of the story was not revealed to Mrs. Archer) he prepared to leave Paris. Some delays arose however, in consequence of which it was not till the evening the eighth day after receiving her summons that he found himself again at Altes. He drove straight to the Rue des Lauriers, where he had to wait some time at the door, without any one coming to open it.
 
Growing impatient, and rather uneasy, for his mind was full of what Marion had written to him about Sybil, he suddenly bethought himself that, as likely as not, the window-door in the drawing-room, which opened on to the garden, might be unlatched. He left the court-yard, and returned to the street, told the driver of the carriage which had brought himself and his luggage from the coach office, to wait a few minutes; and then made his way to the garden at the top of the hilly street, on which opened the drawing-room. The garden gate was fastened, but he easily climbed over the railings, and hastened to the glass door. The blinds were down, but the light inside was low. Evidently no one in the room to be started by his unceremonious entrance! More and more alarmed, he quickly tried the door, found it, as he expected, unlatched; and in another moment was in the room.
 
The lamp was burning feebly, the fire all but out. What could be the meaning of it all? Thinking of nothing but Sybil, it rushed into his mind that perhaps the child was very ill, dying it might be, and he too late to save her. Half expecting to find the whole house-hold assembled in mournful vigil round her bed, he made his way softly to her room.
 
As he passed the chamber occupied by Miss Vyse he noticed that the door was open and a light on the table. He peeped in but there was no one there. But on the pillow lay as mass of golden curls, all but hiding a round, rosy childish thee, which he soon identified as Dotty. Fast asleep, the picture of health and comfort! Somewhat relieved in his mind, but nevertheless surprised at the change in the domestic arrangements which had thus separated the two little sisters, he stepped softly to the other end of the long passage, up from which again a short staircase led to the little vestibule, on to which opened the nursery apartments. All was quiet. There was very little light, only what found its way up from the lamp in the long passage below. The door of the children’s bedroom was nearly closed. He entered the room. The first thing that struck him was that the doors of a large hang-press, close to the entrance of the room, stood wide open, disclosing a row of dresses, evidently the property of Mdlle. Emilie; which, in the faint light, bore a startling resemblance to the headless occupants of the far-famed Bluebeard chamber.
 
Half smiling at his own fancy, Sir Ralph approached the little bed which he knew to be Sybil’s. But the smile quickly faded from his face at what met him there. At first sight he thought there was no one in the bed. But, looking more closely, he distinguished the outlines of a little form, lying perfectly motionless under the coverings. Huddled up together in a sort of heap it seemed to be.
 
Ah! How thankful he felt that it lay thus, instead of straightened out into that awful length and stiffness under the white sheet which, once seen, is never, never again forgotten!
 
Still, though, not so bad as that, there was cause enough for alarm.
 
“Sybil,” he said, gently, “Sybil, dear, are you asleep? Put down the clothes and look at me. I have got your letter, and have come from Paris as fast as I could.”
 
But there was no answer, no movement. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dim light and he could have distinguished the least quiver in the little figure. He looked round. An unlighted candle and matches stood on the table. He struck a light, and again spoke to the child. But it was no use. So he tenderly removed the clothes and raised the face, which was turned round on to the pillow. It was indeed Sybil, but what a Sybil to greet him on his return! She was perfectly unconscious. In a dead swoon or faint, which for all he knew might already have lasted so long that recovery might be impossible. But he had known her faint before, poor little girl, and was at no loss what remedies to employ. He took her in his arms, chafed her cold hands and feet, bathed her forehead, and tried hard to revive her with strong smelling salts, which he found, after a search, in Miss Vyse’s sanctum. He would not, as yet, ring for assistance. He was so sure the child would best recover were she, on regaining her senses, to find herself alone with him.
 
In a few minutes she began to show signs of returning consciousness. At last she opened her eyes, raised herself in his arms, and looked about her with that dazed look peculiar to people when recovering from a state of insensibility. He was on the alert for this moment.
 
“Are you awake now, Sybil dear?” he said. “Are you pleased to see me come back?”
 
She turned to see his face. Oh! what a look of relief and happiness overspread her poor pale drawn features!
 
“Uncle Ralph,” she whispered; “dear Uncle Ralph, will you send them away?” she went on with, with a thrill of agony in her voice. “Oh, will you send them away?”
 
“Who, dear? What?” he asked, eagerly.
 
“Those dreadful people. Those ladies without any heads. They were cut off long ago, down there, in the courtyard, with that dreadful big cutting thing. And they walk about the house at night. And they come to the side of any little girl’s bed if she doesn’t go to sleep quick. And to-night they came again. And, oh! uncle, they’re coming now!” she screamed, as, happening to turn round, she caught sight of the row of headless dresses in the cupboard. And before Ralph could soothe or explain away her terror, the little creature was torn with terrible hysterics, screaming and shaking in a way pitiful to see, till she again subsided into the death-like faint from which he had but just restored her.
 
Now he was obliged to summon assistance. In five minutes the house was in a ferment. Such servants as had not taken advantage of their mistress’s rare absence to amuse themselves elsewhere (among which was not Mdlle. Emilie), were immediately rushing about, some suggesting one thing, some another, till Sir Ralph wished he had managed the child by himself. At last, among them, they succeeded in reviving her. This time her uncle took care to have the cupboard doors shut before she opened her eyes; and he was only too thankful to agree, notwithstanding the amazement of the scandalized servants, to her proposal that he should take her away to Miss Freer’s house, where “those dreadful people could not come.”
 
This was the history of the previous night’s adventures up to the time when Sir Ralph arrived at Mrs. Archer’s door with Sybil in his arms.
 
Cissy and Marion listened in silence to his recital, but when, having got so far, he stopped for a moment to take breath, the former had a host of questions ready for him.
 
“But what in the world did the child mean, Sir Ralph?” she inquired, eagerly. “ ‘Dreadful people without heads’—‘cut of in the court-yard.’ I can’t make it out in the least. And if, as May here suspects, Emilie, the maid, is at the bottom of it, what could be her motive? What good could it do her to frighten the child to death, as she nearly did? No, I can’t make it out.”
 
“Nor could I, Mrs. Archer,” replied Sir Ralph, “till I heard what Sybil had to say this morning. During the Revolution it is perfectly true people’s beads were cut off in our court-yard, for there stood the guillotine. This is a fact sure enough, and well known at Altes. And I now perfectly remember it’s being mentioned to us when we first came here. Sybil, it appears, heard it too, and from the first it made a strong impression on her sensitive imagination. She tells me she never could bear to look out on the courtyard after it grew dark at night; for then this wicked Emilie told her the decapitated victims might be seen promenading about. Some, Emilie told her, with a view to heightening the dramatic effect of her story, might be perceived grubbing about among the stones with which the yard is paved for the lost heads supposed there to be buried. Others, again, would be seen marching along triumphantly like St. Denis, with their heads reposing under their arms. It is really too absurd,” he said, laughing, “though hideous enough to the imagination of a nervous little creature of eight years old.”
 
“But what in the world did Emilie tell her all this for?” asked Marion, speaking for the first time.
 
“You may well ask,” he replied “but as far as I can make out she did it, in the first place, simply out of a spirit of low mischief; for the pure pleasure of teasing the child, whom she evidently does not like, and amusing herself with her terrors. Before long she must have discovered that she could turn Sybil’s fears to useful account. For some time past it appears Miss Vyse has taken it into her head to have Lotty domiciled in her own room. Before this Sybil was comparatively happy; Lotty’s substantial presence appearing to her a sufficient safeguard against ghostly visitants. But when she was left alone in the room at night, her terrors increased so that she could not go to sleep. She begged my mother to let her have a light in the room till Emilie came to bed, but this request was refused, my mother having a notion that it would be bad for the child’s eyes. To make up for this however, Emilie was ordered to sit by Sybil every evening till the child fell asleep. Not the pleasantest of duties apparently, for Emilie regularly shirked it. Two or three times, on being thus left to herself, Sybil jumped out of bed and ran down stairs to fetch Emilie; conduct which that young person much resented, as it interfered with her more entertaining way of spending the evening, and also very nearly, more than once, brought her into disgrace with the authorities below stairs. So she hit on the ingenious expedient of telling Sybil that the headless spectres were said to have a special predilection for the long passage leading to her room. ‘They come along there every night,’ Sybil informed me, ‘and if they find any little girl awake, they come to the side of her bed and stand in a row.’ Isn’t it really frightful to think of the lonely little creature’s agonies?”
 
“Horrible!” said Marion, “but what about the dresses hanging up?”
 
“Oh, that was another clever dodge of Emilie’s, evidently. I asked Sybil how ever she could be frightened at dresses hanging on pegs, but she assured me she did not know there were any dresses there; so I suppose Emilie keeps the cupboard locked in the day-time, and opens it at night to prevent Sybil’s venturing to rush past the dreadful row of spectres at the doorway.”
 
“But another thing, Sir Ralph,” said Marion, “why was Sybil afraid to tell me?”
 
“She was afraid to tell any one, I think,” answered he, “except me, because, as she expressed it, I was ‘big and strong’ and ‘they’ couldn’t hurt me. One day, it seems, when much provoked by her complaints, Emilie gave a garbled account of the affair to Miss. Vyse; who, Sybil says, for reasons of her own, was very unkind to her, and defended Emilie. Sybil would told you, Miss Freer, but one day when, she was on the point of doing so, Emilie, perceiving, I suppose, that the child’s powers or endurance were all but exhausted, terrified her into not confiding in you, by vague hints of injury that might result to you from her so doing. Sybil is rather misty as to what exactly Emilie said; but it seems to have been to the effect that if Sybil set you against her by complaints of her nightly neglect of her duty, she, Emilie, could easily be revenged on you by certain information about you in her possession, which Sybil says ‘if Grandmamma knew would have made her “chasser” Miss Freer away.’ I am not clear about it myself. I only tell it you to warn you to have nothing to say to the girl, out of pity, or any other kindly motive. She shall be ‘chasséed,’ and that very quickly. But first I shall make her explain her insolent words,” he added, with a dark frown on his face.
 
But just then the clock struck eleven. Sir Ralph jumped up.
 
“I must be going,” he said, “I want particularly to be home before my mother and Miss Vyse are visible. I forbade the servants to say anything to them last night, and this morning I counted on their not being very alert after last night’s dissipation.”
 
“I was just wondering what Lady Severn would think of it all!” remarked Mrs. Archer.
 
“I know what she shall think of it all,” replied Sir Ralph, “that is to say at least, if I have any spark of influence left,” he added in a lower tone. “In the meantime, Mrs. Archer, will you be so very kind as to keep Sybil her till I have set things straight again at home?”
 
“With the greatest pleasure,” she replied heartily. And then he left them. Just as he was outside the room, she exclaimed, “Bye-the-by, Sir Ralph, you must get some one to pack up and send her some clothes.”
 
But he did not hear her, and Marion ran, after him to repeat the message.
 
“Very well you thought of it!” he said laughing, and then he stood for a moment if expecting her to say something more.
 
“Sir Ralph,” she said, “will you do me a favour?”
 
“What would I not?” he exclaimed.
 
“Will you be so good as not mention my name at all to that girl, Emilie?” she asked, “never mind if says rude or impertinent things about me. Let them pass. Only don’t set her more against me. I don’t like having enemies.”
 
“Very well,” she replied, “as you wish it, I will endeavour to do as you ask.” But he looked rather surprised.
 
“I daresay you think me very silly,” she said, “but”——
 
“But nothing,” he interrupted, “make your mind quite easy. You are only too good, too gentle.”
 
“No, indeed, I am not,” she said with a little sigh. “My motive is a selfish one. I cannot afford to have enemies.”
 
He looked at her searchingly but very kindly, saying however nothing. The thought passed through his mind, “It must be some family disgrace. Something connected with that father. My poor darling, if only I were free! Can she think anything of that sort would influence me? But I am forgetting. She will have some one else soon to fight her battles. Just as well, perhaps, for her chances of happiness that she will be out in India! As well for her—better in every way. But—for me!”
 
As Marion returned to the drawing-room she said to Cissy anxiously—
 
“Do you think it possible that that Emilie has found out about me, Cissy?”
 
“Found out about you,” repeated Mrs. Archer. “How? What do you mean?”
 
“That Freer is not my real name, and all about it,” answered Marion.
 
“Nonsense, child. How could she know anything of the sort? Don’t be so silly. Besides, if she did! You speak as if it were a disgrace. I declare, Marion, you provoke me. I wish most sincerely that every one in Altes knew your real name, be the consequences what they might.”
 
“Oh, Cissy!” said Marion reproachfully; for Cissy had spoken crossly and pettishly. But Cissy was not repentant.
 
“It’s not good your saying, ‘Oh Cissy’ in that way, Marion. I repeat what I said before. I wish every one in Altes knew the true state of the case.”
 
Her tone was a trifle sharp and unkind, but her heart was full of anxious affection. Of late certain misgivings had begun to assail her, and she had spoken the truth as to her wish that the whole were known. “That would indeed be carrying it too far,” she said to herself, “risking her life-happiness for the sake or concealing that boy’s misdemeanours. No indeed! Rather than that I would brave anything or anybody.”
 
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