The servants, ever superstitious, now whispered mysteriously that the
spirits of the departed returned nightly to their old accustomed
places, and that dusky hands from the graves of the slumbering dead
were uplifted, as if to warn the master of the domain of the
desolation; which was to come. For more than a year the wife of Ernest
Hamilton had been dying--slowly, surely dying--and though when the
skies were brightest and the sunshine warmest she ever seemed better,
each morning's light still revealed some fresh ravage the disease had
made, until at last there was no hope, and the anxious group which
watched her knew full well that ere long among them would be a vacant
chair, and in the family burying ground an added grave.

One evening Mrs. Hamilton seemed more than usually restless, and
requested her daughters to leave her, that she might compose herself
to sleep. Scarcely was she alone when with cat-like tread there glided
through the doorway the dark figure of a woman, who advanced toward
the bedside, noiselessly as a serpent would steal to his ambush. She
was apparently forty-five years of age, and dressed in deep mourning,
which seemed to increase the marble whiteness of her face. Her eyes,
large, black, and glittering, fastened themselves upon, the invalid
with a gaze so intense that Mrs. Hamilton's hand involuntarily sought
the bell-rope, to summon some one else to her room.

But ere the bell was rung a strangely sweet, musical voice fell on her
ear, and arrested her movements. "Pardon me for intruding," said the
stranger, "and suffer me to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Carter, who
not long since removed to the village. I have heard of your illness,
and wishing to render you any assistance in my power, I have ventured,
unannounced, into your presence, hoping that I at least am not
unwelcome."