It might have been a long-forsaken house, for any sign of human
habitation that was to be seen about it. All was silent, solitary
and gloomy.
As Capitola drew up her horse to gaze upon its somber walls she
wondered which was the window at which the spectral light and
ghostly face had been seen. She soon believed that she had found it.
At the highest point of the building, immediately under the sharp
angle of the roof, in the gable and nearest to view, was a solitary
window. The ivy that clung tightly to the stone, covering every
portion of the wall at this end, was clipped away from that high
placed, dark and lonely window by which Capitola's eyes were
strangely fascinated.
While thus she gazed in wonder, interest and curiosity, though
without the least degree of superstitious dread, a vision flashed
upon her sight that sent the blood from her ruddy cheek to her brave
heart, and shook the foundations of her unbelief!
For while she gazed, suddenly that dark window was illumed by a
strange, unearthly light that streamed forth into the gloomy evening
air, and touched with blue flame the quivering leaves of every tree
in its brilliant line! In the midst of this lighted window appeared
a white female face wild with woe! And then the face suddenly
vanished and the light was swallowed up in darkness!
Capitola remained transfixed!
"Great heavens!" she thought, "can these things really be! Have the
ghostly traditions of this world truth in them at last? When I heard
this story of the haunted window I thought some one had surely
imagined or invented it! Now I have seen for myself; but if I were
to tell what I have seen not one in a hundred would believe me!"
While these startling thoughts disturbed her usual well-balanced
mind, a vivid flash of lightning, accompanied by a tremendous peal
of thunder and a heavy fall of rain, roused her into renewed
activity.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74