Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 5 (1925-11).djvu/47

From the Land of Spirits She Came
to Him—and He Was Afraid

David closed the great oak door behind his departing guests, happy at last to hear their laughter and their footsteps mingle with the patter of the rain outside. How long they had stayed and tried him by their good-natured talk—and they could never have understood why he wanted to be alone! Now his silent house was left all to him and he might abandon his mind to the memories which seemed to creep like specters from the dusty corners and faded curtains; to the strange dream that he had borne in his heart so long.

He walked across the thick carpet to the fireplace where the embers were smoldering and casting a glow on the hearth. From overhead, on the mantel, the light of the candelabra flickered and danced down about his graying hair. He heard the drip-drip of the rain on the casement sills; then a gust of wind crowded the drops into a flurry. "Hush! Hush!" it seemed to say. Was it wind, or a sigh? He started. There was the odor of violets again! He walked to the window and opened it so that the damp air blew upon him; and his face twisted in his effort to speak aloud, but he could only whisper, "Eleanore!"

"Drip-drip, patter-patter," answered the rain.

He closed the window, and, sighing, went, back to stare once more at the embers and press his temples with cold fingers. Yes, she would come! She would come back to the old house which had grown musty and dismal for want of her—to him, David, whose heart had grown musty and dismal for want of her. She had promised to come back again sometime in early spring: and he had waited through the years—so long that his hair had grown touched with gray and his face had become lined. But now it would be different. He knew that she was near. Else why that sound of muffled footsteps he had heard of late, sometimes following, sometimes going before him over the velvet carpet through the lonely halls? The swish of curtains that moved as if from a person passing by? The odor of violets here and there—her violets? And strangest of all, the little yellowed handkerchief he had found in the carven chair? The handkerchief belonged in the chest where he kept the trifles she had once used; around it, too, clung the breath of violets, together with the same odor that was given forth by the sunless rooms downstairs. The chest was always locked—yet he had found the kerchief.

"Eleanore! Where are you?" His own voice startled him.

He suddenly saw that the ashes in the grate were no longer smoldering rosily. They were getting gray. It must be time for him to go to bed. So after he had put the screen around the fireplace he began to extinguish