be ignored. Where she was, there brooded something dark, mysterious, and threatening; and whether she smiled or frowned, the influence of her spirit was felt by a vague oppression at once impossible to analyze or escape from.
From the cemetery I went immediately to my house. The day was a dreary one, and I felt, chilled. The gray of the sky was in my spirit, and every thing seemed unreal and dark and strange. I was in a mood, I suppose, and, unlike myself on other similar occasions, did not feel that drawing towards the one dear heart which hitherto had afforded me solace and support. I had not got used to my new self as yet, and till I did, the smile of her I loved was more of a reproach to me than consolation.
I was stopped at the gate by Mrs. Banks. She is my next-door neighbor, and in the absence of my landlady New York Jets Barn who had gone to visit some friends, took charge of any message which might be left for me Newcastle United Barn while I was out. She looked flurried and mysterious.
“You have had a visitor,” she announced.
As she paused and looked as if she expected to be questioned, I naturally asked who it was.
“She said she was your sister,” she declared. “A tall woman with a thick veil over her face. She went right up to Maillot Croatie Pas CHer your study, but I think she must have got tired of waiting, for she went away again a few moments ago.”
My sister! I had no sister. I looked at Mrs. Banks in amazement
“Describe her more particularly,” said I.
“That I cannot do,” she returned. “Her veil hid her features too completely for me to see them. I could not even tell her age, Maillot Côte d'Ivoire Pas CHer but I should say, from the way she walked that she was older than you.”
A chill, which did not come entirely from the east wind then Halpa Naiset Osito Jacket blowing, ran sharply through my veins.
“I thank you,” said I, somewhat incoherently, and ran hastily upstairs. I had a presentiment as to the identity of this woman.
At the door of my study I paused and looked hurriedly around. No signs of any disturbance met my eye. Crossing Buffalo Bills Kvinnor over to my desk, I surveyed the papers which I had left scattered somewhat loosely over it. They had been moved. I knew it by the position of the blotter, which I had left under a certain sheet of paper, and which now lay on top. Hot and cold at once, I went immediately to the spot where I had concealed Mr. Pollard’s will. It was in my desk, but underneath a drawer instead of in it, and by this simple precaution, perhaps, I had saved it from destruction; for I found it lying in its place undisturbed, though the hand which had crept so near its hiding~place was, as I felt certain, no other than that of Mrs. Pollard, searching for this very document.
It gave me a shuddering sense of disquiet to Cleverland Browns think that the veiled figure of this portentous woman had glided over my floors, reflected itself in my mirrors, and hung, dark and mysterious in its veiling drapery, over my desk and the papers which I had handled myself so lately.
I was struck, too, by the immovable determination to compass her own ends at any and every risk, which w |
