There
was something awful in the despair "on that face so young" that
bound the gazer in an irresistible and most painful spell. And
Capitola remained standing before it transfixed, until the striking
of the hall clock aroused her from her enchantment. Wondering who
the young creature could have been, what had been her history and,
above all, what had been the nature of that fearful woe that
darkened like a curse her angel brow, Capitola turned almost
sorrowfully away and began to prepare for bed.
She undressed, put on the delicate nightclothes Clara had provided
for her use, said her evening prayers, looked under the bed--a
precaution taken ever since the night upon which she had discovered
the burglars--and, finding all right, she blew out her candle and
lay down. She could not sleep--many persons of nervous or mercurial
temperaments cannot do so the first night in a strange bed. Cap was
very mercurial, and the bed and room in which she lay were very
strange; for the first time since she had had a home to call her own
she was unexpectedly staying all night away from her friends, and
without their having any knowledge of her whereabouts. She was
conjecturing, half in fear and half in fun, how Old Hurricane was
taking her escapade and what he would say to her in the morning. She
was wondering to find herself in such an unforeseen position as that
of a night guest in the mysterious Hidden House--wondering whether
this was the guest chamber in which the ghost appeared to the
officer and these were the very curtains that the pale lady drew at
night.
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