The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

The telephone of which Treville had told her stood on a table close to her pillow. How amazed would Julie have been to hear that a day would come when a woman lying in what had been her bed would be able to speak from there to her lover – the man who, like Julie’s own lover, was master of the great house which stood over a mile away from The Folly.

Célestine had forgotten to draw the heavy embroidered yellow silk curtains, and Laura walked to the nearest window and looked out on to the gleaming waters of the lake.

Across to the right rose dense clumps of dark ilexes; to the left tall trees, now stripped of leaves, stood black and drear against the winter sky.

The telephone bell tinkled. She turned and ran across the room, and then she heard Julian Treville’s voice as strong, as clear, as love-laden, as if he were with her here, tonight.

The next day’s sun illumined a beautiful soft winter morning, and Laura felt not only tremblingly happy, but also what she had not thought to feel – at peace. She went for a walk round the lake, then enjoyed the luncheon Célestine had prepared for her. Célestine, so much was clear, was set on waiting on her far more assiduously than she did on her own mistress, old Mrs Treville.

About three o’clock Laura went again out of doors, to come in, an hour later, to find the lamp in the drawing-room lit, though it was not yet dark.

She went through into her bedroom, and then she heard the telephone ring – not loudly, insistently, as it had rung last night, but with a thin, tenuous sound.

Eagerly she went over to the side of the bed and took off the receiver, and then, as if coming from infinitely far away, she heard Julian Treville’s voice.

“Are you there, my darling? I am in darkness, but our love is my beacon, and my heart is full of you,” and his voice, his dear voice, sank away . . .

Then he was home from hunting far sooner than he had thought to be? This surely meant that very soon he would be here.

She took off her hat and coat, put on a frock Julian had once said he loved to see her wear, and then went back to wait for his coming in the sitting-room. But the moments became minutes, and the minutes quarters of an hour, and the time went by very slowly.

At last a key turned in the lock of the front door, and she stood up – then felt a pang of bitter disappointment, for it was only the old Frenchwoman who passed through into the room.

Célestine shut the door behind her, and then she came close up to where Laura had sat down again, wearily, by the fire.

“Madame!” she exclaimed. And then she stopped short, a tragic look on her pale withered face.

Laura’s thoughts flew to her child. She leapt up from her chair. “What is it, Célestine? A message for me?”

Very solemnly Célestine said the fearful words: “Prepare for ill news.”

“Ill news?” Oh! how could she have left her child? “What do you mean?” cried Laura violently.

“There is no message come for you. But – but – our good kind master, Mr Treville, is dead. He was killed out hunting today. I was in the village when the news was brought.” She went on, speaking in quick gasps: “His horse – how say you?—” she waited, and then, finding the word she sought, “stumbled,” she sobbed.

Laura for a moment stood still, as if she had not heard, or did not understand the purport of, the other’s words, and then she gave a strangled cry, as Célestine, gathering her to her gaunt breast, said quickly in French, “My poor, poor lady! Well did I see that my master loved you – and that you loved him. You must leave The Folly tonight, at once. They have already telegraphed for old Mrs Treville.”

3

An hour later Laura was dressed, ready for departure. In a few minutes from now Célestine would be here to carry her bag to the car which the old Frenchwoman had procured to take her to the distant station where Julian Treville had met her yesterday. Yesterday? It seemed æons of time ago.

Suddenly there came a loud knock on the heavy door, and at once she walked across the room and opened it wide.

Nothing mattered to her now; and when Roger Delacourt strode into the room she felt scarce any surprise, and that though she had believed him a thousand miles away.

“Are you alone, Laura?” he asked harshly.

There was a look of savage anger in his face. His vanity – the vanity of a man no longer young who has had a strong allure for women – felt bruised in its tenderest part.

As she said nothing, only looked at him with an air of tragic pain and defiance, he went on, jeeringly, “No doubt you are asking yourself how I found out where you were, and on what pretty business you were engaged? I will give you a clue, and you can guess the rest for yourself. I had to come back unexpectedly to England, and the one person to whom you gave this address – I presume so you might have news of the boy – unwittingly gave you away!”