The Spirit's Whisper Page #3

"The Spirit's Whisper" is a short story by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, renowned for his contributions to Gothic literature. In this tale, the narrative explores themes of the supernatural, haunting, and the delicate boundary between the living and the dead. Set against a richly atmospheric backdrop, the story delves into the encounters of characters with ghostly apparitions and the emotional turmoil that accompanies their experiences. Le Fanu's signature style blends suspense and melancholy, creating a chilling yet captivating exploration of human fear, desire, and the mysteries of the afterlife.

• Horror

								

She again turned away her head.

"Mary," I pursued, "can you doubt, that, spite of all, I have still a
strong interest in the companion of my youth?"

She looked at me almost mournfully, but did not speak. At that moment I
probably grew pale; for suddenly that chilly fit seized me again, and
my forehead became clammy. That voice sounded again in my ear: "Speak
of him!" were the words it uttered. Mary gazed on me with surprise, and
yet I was assured that she had not heard that voice, so plain to me.
She evidently mistook the nature of my visible emotion.

"O Master John!" she stammered, with tears gathering in her eyes,
reverting again to that name of bygone times, "if you had loved me
then--if you had consoled my true affection with one word of hope, one
look of loving-kindness--if you had not spurned and crushed me, I should
not have been what I am now."

I was about to make some answer to this burst of unforgotten passion,
when the voice came again: "Speak of him!"

"You have loved others since," I remarked, with a coldness which seemed
cruel to myself. "You love him now." And I nodded my head toward the
door by which the man had disappeared.

"Do I?" she said, with a bitter smile. "Perhaps; who knows?"

"And yet no good can come to you from a connection with that man," I
pursued.

"Why not? He adores me, and he is free," was her answer, given with a
little triumphant air.

"Yes," I said, "I know he is free: he has lately lost his wife. He has
made good his claim to the sum for which he insured her life."

Mary grew deadly pale. "How did you learn this? what do you know of
him?" she stammered.

I had no reply to give. She scanned my face anxiously for some time;
then in a low voice she added, "What do you suspect?"

I was still silent, and only looked at her fixedly.

"You do not speak," she pursued nervously. "Why do you not speak? Ah,
you know more than you would say! Master John, Master John, you might
set my tortured mind at rest, and clear or confirm those doubts which
will come into my poor head, spite of myself. Speak out--O, do speak
out!"

"Not here; it is impossible," I replied, looking around. The room as the
hour advanced, was becoming more thronged with guests, and the full
tables gave a pretext for my reticence, when in truth I had nothing to
say.

"Will you come and see me--will you?" she asked with earnest entreaty.

I nodded my head.

"Have you a pocketbook? I will write you my address; and you will
come--yes, I am sure you will come!" she said in an agitated way.

I handed her my pocketbook and pencil; she wrote rapidly.

"Between the hours of three and five," she whispered, looking uneasily
at the door; "he is sure not to be at home."

I rose; Mary held out her hand to me, then withdrew it hastily with an
air of shame, and the tears sprang into her eyes again. I left the room
hurriedly, and met her companion on the stairs.

That same evening, in the solitude of my own room, I pondered over the
little event of the day. I had calmed down from my state of excitement.
The living apparition of Mary Simms occupied my mind almost to the
exclusion of the terrors of the ghostly voice which had haunted me, and
my own fears of coming insanity. In truth, what was that man to me?
Nothing. What did his doings matter to such a perfect stranger as
myself? Nothing. His connection with Mary Simms was our only link; and
in what should that affect me? Nothing again. I debated with myself
whether it were not foolish of me to comply with my youthful companion's
request to visit her; whether it were not imprudent in me to take any
further interest in the lost woman; whether there were not even danger
in seeking to penetrate mysteries which were no concern of mine. The
resolution to which I came pleased me, and I said aloud, "No, I will not
go!"

At the same moment came again the voice like an awful echo to my
words--"Go!" It came so suddenly and so imperatively, almost without any
previous warning of the usual shudder, that the shock was more than I
could bear. I believe I fainted; I know I found myself, when I came to
consciousness, in my arm-chair, cold and numb, and my candles had almost
burned down into their sockets.

The next morning I was really ill. A sort of low fever seemed to have
prostrated me, and I would have willingly seized so valid a reason for
disobeying, at least for that day--for some days, perhaps--the
injunction of that ghostly voice. But all that morning it never left me.
My fearful chilly fit was of constant recurrence, and the words "Go! go!
go!" were murmured so perpetually in my ears--the sound was one of such
urgent entreaty--that all force of will gave way completely. Had I
remained in that lone room, I should have gone wholly mad. As yet, to my
own feelings, I was but partially out of my senses.

I dressed hastily; and, I scarce know how--by no effort of my own will,
it seemed to me--I was in the open air. The address of Mary Simms was in
a street not far from my own suburb. Without any power of reasoning, I
found myself before the door of the house. I knocked, and asked a
slipshod girl who opened the door to me for "Miss Simms." She knew no
such person, held a brief shrill colloquy with some female in the
back-parlor, and, on coming back, was about to shut the door in my face,
when a voice from above--the voice of her I sought--called down the
stairs, "Let the gentleman come up!"

I was allowed to pass. In the front drawing-room I found Mary Simms.

"They do not know me under that name," she said with a mournful smile,
and again extended, then withdrew, her hand.

"Sit down," she went on to say, after a nervous pause. "I am alone now;
told I adjure you, if you have still one latent feeling of old kindness
for me, explain your words of yesterday to me."

I muttered something to the effect that I had no explanation to give. No
words could be truer; I had not the slightest conception what to say.

"Yes, I am sure you have; you must, you will," pursued Mary excitedly;
"you have some knowledge of that matter."

"What matter?" I asked.

"Why, the insurance," she replied impatiently. "You know well what I
mean. My mind has been distracted about it. Spite of myself, terrible
suspicions have forced themselves on me. No; I don't mean that," she
cried, suddenly checking herself and changing her tone; "don't heed
what I said; it was madness in me to say what I did. But do, do, do tell
me all you know."

The request was a difficult one to comply with, for I knew nothing. It
is impossible to say what might have been the end of this strange
interview, in which I began to feel myself an unwilling impostor; but
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