To Be Read At Dusk | Page 7

over! Dellombra has come and gone, and your
apprehension is broken like glass.'
'Will he - will he ever come again?' asked mistress.
'Again? Why, surely, over and over again! Are you cold?' (she shivered).
'No, dear - but - he terrifies me: are you sure that he need come again?'
'The surer for the question, Clara!' replied master, cheerfully.
But, he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so
every day. She was beautiful. He was happy.
'All goes well, Baptista?' he would say to me again.
'Yes, signore, thank God; very well.'
We were all (said the Genoese courier, constraining himself to speak a little louder), we
were all at Rome for the Carnival. I had been out, all day, with a Sicilian, a friend of mine,
and a courier, who was there with an English family. As I returned at night to our hotel, I

met the little Carolina, who never stirred from home alone, running distractedly along the
Corso.
'Carolina! What's the matter?'
'O Baptista! O, for the Lord's sake! where is my mistress?'
'Mistress, Carolina?'
'Gone since morning - told me, when master went out on his day's journey, not to call her,
for she was tired with not resting in the night (having been in pain), and would lie in bed
until the evening; then get up refreshed. She is gone! - she is gone! Master has come back,
broken down the door, and she is gone! My beautiful, my good, my innocent mistress!'
The pretty little one so cried, and raved, and tore herself that I could not have held her,
but for her swooning on my arm as if she had been shot. Master came up - in manner,
face, or voice, no more the master that I knew, than I was he. He took me (I laid the little
one upon her bed in the hotel, and left her with the chamber-women), in a carriage,
furiously through the darkness, across the desolate Campagna. When it was day, and we
stopped at a miserable post-house, all the horses had been hired twelve hours ago, and
sent away in different directions. Mark me! by the Signor Dellombra, who had passed
there in a carriage, with a frightened English lady crouching in one corner.
I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a long breath) that she was ever traced
beyond that spot. All I know is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with the
dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream.
'What do you call THAT?' said the German courier, triumphantly. 'Ghosts! There are no
ghosts THERE! What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghosts! There are no
ghosts HERE!'
I took an engagement once (pursued the German courier) with an English gentleman,
elderly and a bachelor, to travel through my country, my Fatherland. He was a merchant
who traded with my country and knew the language, but who had never been there since
he was a boy - as I judge, some sixty years before.
His name was James, and he had a twin-brother John, also a bachelor. Between these
brothers there was a great affection. They were in business together, at Goodman's Fields,
but they did not live together. Mr. James dwelt in Poland Street, turning out of Oxford
Street, London; Mr. John resided by Epping Forest.
Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about a week. The exact day depended on
business. Mr. John came to Poland Street (where I was staying in the house), to pass that
week with Mr. James. But, he said to his brother on the second day, 'I don't feel very well,
James. There's not much the matter with me; but I think I am a little gouty. I'll go home
and put myself under the care of my old housekeeper, who understands my ways. If I get
quite better, I'll come back and see you before you go. If I don't feel well enough to
resume my visit where I leave it off, why YOU will come and see me before you go.' Mr.

James, of course, said he would, and they shook hands - both hands, as they always did -
and Mr. John ordered out his old-fashioned chariot and rumbled home.
It was on the second night after that - that is to say, the fourth in the week - when I was
awoke out of my sound sleep by Mr. James coming into my bedroom in his flannel-gown,
with a lighted candle. He sat upon the side of my bed, and looking at me, said:
'Wilhelm, I have reason to think I have got some strange illness upon me.'
I then perceived that there was