"It is the memory of a long, dreary and hopeless imprisonment, my
recollection of my residence in that house! In the same manner in
which I gained all my information, I learned that it was reported in
the neighborhood that I had gone mad with grief for the loss of my
husband and that I was an inmate of a madhouse in the North! It was
altogether false! I never left the Hidden House in all those years
until about two years ago. My life there was dreary beyond all
conception. I was forbidden to go out or to appear at a window. I
had the whole attic, containing some eight or ten rooms, to rove
over, but I was forbidden to descend. An ill-looking woman called
Dorcas Knight, between whom and the elder Le Noir there seemed to
have been some sinful bond was engaged ostensibly as my attendant,
but really as my jailer. Nevertheless, when the sense of confinement
grew intolerable I sometimes eluded her vigilance and wandered about
the house at night."
"Thence, no doubt," said Traverse, "giving rise to the report that
the house was haunted."
Mrs. Le Noir smiled, saying:
"I believe the Le Noirs secretly encouraged that report. I'll tell
you why. They gave me a chamber lamp inclosed in an intense blue,
shade, that cast a strange, unearthly light around. Their ostensible
reason was to insure my safety from fire. Their real reason was that
this light might be seen from without in what was reputed to be an
uninhabited portion of the house, and give color to its bad
reputation among the ignorant of being haunted.
Pages:
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337