The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

to her kindness)in making me say Yes." Before I could answer her she had realized myanticipations. She returned to the subject; and she made me say Yes.

  "What does your silence mean?" she said. "Do you ask me to help you, anddo you refuse to accept the first suggestion I offer?"

  "Take up your pen," I rejoined. "It shall be as you wish."

  "Will you dictate the words?"

  "I will try."

  I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of Mrs. Van Brandtvividly present to my mind, I arranged the first words of the sentencewhich was to tell my mother that my "infatuation" was at an end!

  "You will be glad to hear," I began, "that time and change are doingtheir good work."

  Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation of the nextsentence. The light faded and faded; the room grew darker and darker. Iwent on.

  "I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear mother, on thesubject of Mrs. Van Brandt."

  In the deep silence I could hear the pen of my secretary travelingsteadily over the paper while it wrote those words.

  "Have you written?" I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased.

  "I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet tones.

  I went on again with my letter.

  "The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I amresigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt."

  As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from MissDunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in thedeepening darkness, t hat her head had fallen on the back of the chair.My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to her. I had barely gotto my feet, when some indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant.Supporting myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapableof advancing a step. The effort to speak was the one effort that I couldmake.

  "Are you ill?" I asked.

  She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without raisingher head.

  "I am frightened," she said.

  "What has frightened you?"

  I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answering me, shewhispered to herself: "What am I to say to him?"

  "Tell me what has frightened you?" I repeated. "You know you may trustme with the truth."

  She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange words:

  "Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing foryou."

  "What is it?"

  "I can't tell you."

  "Can you see it?"

  "No."

  "Can you feel it?"

  "Yes!"

  "What is it like?"

  "Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter."

  "Has the window come open?"

  "The window is close shut."

  "And the door?"

  "The door is shut also--as well as I can see. Make sure of it foryourself. Where are you? What are you doing?"

  I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last words, I wasconscious of a change in that part of the room.

  In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light shining;not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and starry radiance, apale, unearthly light. While I watched it, the starry radiance quiveredas if some breath of air had stirred it. When it was still again, theredawned on me through the unearthly luster the figure of a woman. By fineand slow gradations, it became more and more distinct. I knew the noblefigure; I knew the sad and tender smile. For the second time I stood inthe presence of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt.

  She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which shehad worn on the memorable evening when we met on the bridge--in thedress in which she had first appeared to me, by the waterfall inScotland. The starry light shone round her like a halo. She looked atme with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she had looked when I sawthe apparition of her in the summer-house. She lifted her hand--notbeckoning me to approach her, as before, but gently signing to me toremain where I stood.

  I waited--feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I looked ather.

  She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss Dunrosssat; winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at the back. Bythe light of the pale halo that encircled the ghostly Presence, andmoved with it, I could see the dark figure of the living woman seatedimmovable in the chair. The writing-case was on her lap, with the letterand the pen lying on it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiledhead was now bent forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stonein the act of trying to rise from her seat.

  A moment passed--and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over theliving woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested thewriting-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen and wroteon the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back on the lap of theliving woman. Still standing behind the chair, it turned toward me. Itlooked at me once more. And now it beckoned--beckoned to me to approach.

  Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I firstsaw her in the summer-house--drawn nearer and nearer by an irresistiblepower--I approached and stopped within a few paces of her. She advancedand laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt those strangely mingledsensations of rapture and awe, which had once before filled me when Iwas conscious, spiritually, of her touch. Again she spoke, in the low,melodious tones which I recalled so well. Again she said the words:"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The palelight in which she stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilightglimmering between the curtains--and I saw no more. She had spoken. Shehad gone.

  I was near Miss Dunross--near enough, when I put out my hand, to touchher.

  She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from adreadful dream.

  "Speak to me!" she whispered. "Let me know that it is _you_ who touchedme."

  I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her.

  "Have you seen anything in the room?"

  She answered. "I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seennothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap."

  "Did you see the hand that lifted it?"

  "No."

  "Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?"

  "No."

  "Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?"

  "I saw it resting on my shoulder."

  "Did you see writing on the letter, which was not _your_ writing?"

  "I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I amsitting."

  "Did it move?"

  "It moved across the paper."

  "As a pen moves in writing?"

  "Yes. As a pen moves in writing."

  "May I take the letter?"

  She handed it to me.

  "May I light a candle?"

  She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in silence.

  I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the writing.

  There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before on theblank space in the sketch-book--there were the written words which theghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged once more in two lines, asI copy them here:

  At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.

  CHAPTER XXIII. THE KISS.

  SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all the oldlove, all the old devotion owning her power once more. Whatever hadmortified or angered me at our last interview was forgiven and forgottennow. My whole being still thrilled with the mingled awe and rapture ofbeholding the Vision of her that had come to me for the second time. Theminutes passed--and I stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinkingonly of her spoken words, "Remember me. Come to me;" looking only at hermystic writing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's."

  The month's end was still far off; the apparition of her had shownitself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that was still inthe future. Ample time was before me for the pilgr
image to which I wasself-dedicated already--my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul's.Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the rightunderstanding of the place to which they were bidden. Other men mighthave wearied their memories by recalling the churches, the institutions,the streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated toChristian reverence by the great apostle's name, and might havefruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first to turntheir steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was theone conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. "Saint Paul's" meant thefamous Cathedral of London. Where the shadow of the great church fell,there, at the month's end, I should find her, or the trace of her. InLondon once more, and nowhere else, I was