He shook his finger at the wretched girl, and the
chamber echoed, the curtains of the bed were shaken, with his outburst
of insane merriment.
"Another triumph for the Lady Eleanore!" he cried. "All have been her
victims; who so worthy to be the final victim as herself?" Impelled by
some new fantasy of his crazed intellect, he snatched the fatal mantle
and rushed from the chamber and the house.
That night a procession passed by torchlight through the streets,
bearing in the midst the figure of a woman enveloped with a
richly-embroidered mantle, while in advance stalked Jervase Helwyse
waving the red flag of the pestilence. Arriving opposite the
province-house, the mob burned the effigy, and a strong wind came and
swept away the ashes. It was said that from that very hour the
pestilence abated, as if its sway had some mysterious connection, from
the first plague-stroke to the last, with Lady Elcanore's mantle. A
remarkable uncertainty broods over that unhappy lady's fate. There is
a belief, however, that in a certain chamber of this mansion a female
form may sometimes be duskily discerned shrinking into the darkest
corner and muffling her face within an embroidered mantle. Supposing
the legend true, can this be other than the once proud Lady Eleanore?
* * * * *
Mine host and the old loyalist and I bestowed no little Warmth of
applause upon this narrative, in which we had all been deeply
interested; for the reader can scarcely conceive how unspeakably the
effect of such a tale is heightened when, as in the present case, we
may repose perfect confidence in the veracity of him who tells it.
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