But Regina imagined that in the dusky library, by the wan flicker of the dying fire, she could trace the spectral outline of a white draped table, and of a tall prostrate form bearing a Grand Duke jasmine in its icy hand.  Shuddering violently, she wrapped her shawl around her and sprang down the steps into the drizzling rain, while Mrs. Lindsay slowly followed, weeping silently.

“Were it mine I would close the shutters,
Like lids when the life is fled,
And the funeral fire should wind it,
This corpse of a home that is dead.”

CHAPTER XIII.

The snow was falling fast nest morning, when with a long hoarse shriek the locomotive dashed into New York, and drew up to the platform, where a crowd of human beings and equipages of every description had assembled to greet the arrival of the train.

The din of voices, ringing of bells, whistle of engines, and all the varied notes of that Babel diapason that so utterly bewilders the stranger stranded on the bustling streets of busy Gotham, fell upon Regina’s ears with the startling force of novelty.  She wondered if there were thunder mixed with swiftly falling snow—­that low, dull, ceaseless roar—­that endless monologue of the paved streets—­where iron and steel ground down the stone highways, along which the Juggernaut of Traffic rolled ponderously, day in and day out.

Gazing curiously down from her window at the sea of faces wherein cabmen, omnibus drivers, porters, vociferated and gesticulated, each striving to tower above his neighbour, like the tame vipers in the Egyptian pitcher, whereof Teufelsdroeckh discourses in Sator Resartus, Regina made no attempt to leave her seat, until the courteous conductor to whose care Mrs. Lindsay had consigned her touched her arm to arrest her attention.

“You are Miss Orme, I believe, and here is the gentleman who came to meet you.”

Turning quickly, with the expectation of seeing Mr. Palma, she found herself in the presence of an elegantly dressed young gentleman, not more than twenty-two or three years old, who wore ample hay-coloured whiskers brushed in English style, after the similitude of the fins of a fish, or the wings of a bat.  A long moustache of the same colour drooped over a mouth feminine in mould, and as he lifted his brown fur cap and bowed she saw that his light hair was parted in the middle of his head.

He handed her a card on which was printed, “Elliott Roscoe.”

“Regina Orme, I presume.  My cousin Mr. Palma desired me to meet you at the train, and see you safely to his house, as he is not in the city.  I guess you had a tiresome trip; you look worn out.  Have you the checks for your baggage?”

She handed them to him, took her satchel, and followed him out of the car, through the dense throng, to a coupe.

The driver, whose handsome blue coat with its glittering gilt buttons was abundantly embroidered with snow-flakes, opened the door, and as Mr. Roscoe assisted the stranger to enter, he said: