lively
Felipa had become half hysterical in her remorseful apologies, and that
Aunt Viney had ended the scene by carrying Cecily into her own
room, where she presently recovered a still trembling but reticent
consciousness. But the fainting of his cousin and the presence of a real
emergency had diverted his imagination from the vague terror that
had taken possession of it, and for the moment enabled him to control
himself. With a desperate effort he managed to keep up a show of
hospitable civility to his Spanish friends until their early departure.
Then he hurried to his own room. So bewildered and horrified he had
become, and a prey to such superstitious terrors, that he could not at
that moment bring himself to the test of looking for the picture of the
alleged Rosita, which might still be hanging in his aunt's room. If
it were really the face of his mysterious visitant--in his present
terror--he felt that his reason might not stand the shock. He would look
at it to-morrow, when he was calmer! Until then he would believe that
the story was some strange coincidence with what must have been his
hallucination, or a vulgar trick to which he had fallen a credulous
victim. Until then he would believe that Cecily's fright had been only
the effect of Dona Felipa's story, acting upon a vivid imagination, and
not a terrible confirmation of something she had herself seen. He threw
himself, without undressing, upon his bed in a benumbing agony of doubt.

The gentle opening of his door and the slight rustle of a skirt started
him to his feet with a feeling of new and overpowering repulsion. But it
was a familiar figure that he saw in the long aisle of light which led
from his recessed window, whose face was white enough to have been a
spirit's, and whose finger was laid upon its pale lips, as it softly
closed the door behind it.

"Cecily!"

"Hush!" she said, in a distracted whisper: "I felt I must see you
to-night. I could not wait until day--no, not another hour! I could
not speak to you before them. I could not go into that dreadful garden
again, or beyond the walls of this house. Dick, I want to--I MUST tell
you something! I would have kept it from every one--from you most of
all! I know you will hate me, and despise me; but, Dick, listen!"--she
caught his hand despairingly, drawing it towards her--"that girl's awful
story was TRUE!" She threw his hand away.

"And you have seen HER!" said Dick, frantically. "Good God!"