she, stiff as any stone, standing right facing me, her eyes dilated with terror, her ashen lips trembling, but her body motionless. In her hands she held her crucifix, as if by that holy symbol she sought to oppose my entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back into a chair. Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque by the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed before the picture of the Virgin.
'Is she there? asked Bridget hoarsely.
'No! Who! I am alone. You remember me.
'Yes, replied she, still terror-stricken. 'But she — that creature — has been looking in upon me through the window all day long. I closed it up with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door, as long as it was light, and I knew she heard my very breathing — nay, worse, my very prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening choked the words ere they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she? — what means that double girl I saw this morning? One had the look of my dead Mary; but the other curdled my blood, and yet it was the same!
She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself some human companionship. She shook all over with the slight, never-ceasing tremor of intense terror. I told her my tale as I have told it you, sparing none of the details.
How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resemblance had driven Lucy forth from her father's house — how I had disbelieved, until, with mine own eyes, I had seen another Lucy standing behind my Lucy, the same in form and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of the eyes. I told her all, I say, believing that she — whose curse was working so upon the life of her innocent grandchild — was the only person who could find the remedy and the redemption. When I had done, she sat silent for many minutes.
'You love Mary's child? she asked.
'I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse — I love her. Yet I shrink from her ever since that day on the moor-side. And men must shrink from one so accompanied; friends and lovers must stand afar off. Oh, Bridget Fitzgerald! loosen the curse! Set her free!
'Where is she?
I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was needed, in order that, by some strange power or exorcism, the spell might be reversed.
'I will go and bring her to you! I exclaimed. But Bridget tightened her hold upon my arm.
'Not so, said she, in a low, hoarse voice. 'It would kill me to see her again as I saw her this morning. And I must live till I have worked my work. Leave me! said she suddenly, and again taking up the cross. 'I defy the demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle with it!
She stood up, as if in an ecstasy of inspiration, from which all fear was banished. I lingered — why I can hardly tell — until once more she bade me begone. As I went along the forest way, I looked back and saw her planting the cross in the empty threshold, where the door had been.
The next morning Lucy and I went to seek her, to bid her join her prayers with ours. The cottage stood open and wide to our gaze. No human being was there; the cross remained on the threshold, but Bridget was gone.
CHAPTER III
What was to be done next? was the question that I asked myself As for Lucy, she would fain have submitted to the doom that lay upon her. Her gentleness and piety, under the pressure of so horrible a life, seemed over- passive to me. She never complained. Mrs. Clarke complained more than ever. As for me, I was more in love with the real Lucy than ever; but I shrank from the false similitude with an intensity proportioned to my love. I found out by instinct that Mrs. Clarke had occasional temptations to leave Lucy. The good lady's nerves were shaken; and, from what she said, I could almost have concluded that the object of the Double was to drive away from Lucy this last, and almost earliest friend. At times, I could scarcely bear to own it, but I myself felt inclined to turn recreant; and I would accuse Lucy of being too patient — too resigned. One after another, she won the little children of Coldholme. (Mrs. Clarke and she had resolved to stay there, for was it not as good a place as any other, to such as they? and did not all our faint hopes rest on Bridget — never seen or heard of now, but still, we trusted, to come back, or give some token?) So, as I say, one after another, the little children came about my Lucy, won by her soft tones, and her gentle smiles, and kind actions. Alas! one after another they fell away, arid shrunk from her path with blanching terror; and we too surely guessed the reason why. It was the last drop. I could bear it no longer. I resolved no more to linger around the spot, but to go back to my uncle, and among the learned divines of the city of London, seek for some power whereby to annul the curse.
My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the requisite testimonials relating to Lucy's descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and from Mr. Gisborne. The latter gentleman had written from abroad (he was again serving in the Austrian army) a letter alternately passionately self-reproachful and stoically repellant. It was evident that, when he thought of Mary — her short life — how he had wronged her, and of her violent death, he could hardly find words severe enough for his own conduct; and from this point of view, the curse that Bridget had laid upon him and his, was regarded by him as a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which she was moved by a Higher Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper vengeance than for the death of the poor dog. But then, again, when he came to speak of his daughter, the repugnance which the conduct of the demoniac creature had produced in his mind, was but ill disguised under a show of profound indifference as to Lucy's fate. One almost felt as if he would have been as content to put her out of existence, as he would have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that had invaded then, the innocent must suffer. It is to plead for the innocent his chamber or his couch.
The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy's; and that was all — was nothing.
My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November evening, in our house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, and felt as if I were in an inextricable coil of misery. Lucy and I wrote to each other, but that was little; and we dare not see each other for dread of the fearful Third, who had more than once taken her place at our meetings. My uncle had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be put up on the ensuing Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in London, for one grievously tormented by an evil spirit. He had faith in prayers — I had none; I was fast losing faith in all things. So we sat, he trying to interest me in the old talk of other days, I oppressed by one thought — when our old servant, Anthony, opened the door, and, without speaking, showed in a very gentlemanly and prepossessing man, who had something remarkable about his dress, betraying his profession to be that of the Roman Catholic priesthood. He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was to me he bowed.
'I did not give my name, said he, 'because you would hardly have recognised it; unless, sir, when, in the north, you heard of Father Bernard, the chaplain at Stonyhurst?
I remembered afterwards that I had heard of him, but at the time I had utterly forgotten it; so I professed myself a complete stranger to him; while my ever-hospitable uncle, although hating a Papist as much as it was in his nature to hate anything, placed a chair for the visitor, and bade Anthony bring glasses, and a fresh jug of claret.
Father Bernard received this courtesy with the graceful ease and pleasant acknowledgement which belonged to a man of the world. Then he turned to scan me with his keen glance. After some slight conversation, entered into on his part, I am certain, with an intention of discovering on what terms of confidence I stood with my uncle, he paused, and said gravely:
'I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a woman to whom you have shown kindness, and who is one of my penitents in Antwerp — one Bridget Fitzgerald.
'Bridget Fitzgerald! exclaimed I. 'In Antwerp? Tell me sir, all that you can about her.
'There is much to be said, he replied. 'But may I inquire if this gentleman — if your uncle is acquainted with the particulars of which you and I stand informed?
'All that I know, he knows, said I, eagerly laying my hand on my uncle's arm, as he made a motion as if to quit the room.
'Then I have to speak before two gentleman who, however they may differ from me in faith, are yet fully impressed with the fact that there are evil powers going about continually to take cognisance of our evil thoughts; and, if their Master gives them power, to bring them into overt action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin
