The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gray Madam, by
Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

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Title: The Gray Madam
1899

Author: Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

Release Date: September 29, 2007 [EBook #22808]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAY MADAM ***

Produced by David Widger

THE GRAY MADAM.

By Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

Copyright, 1899, by Earle H. Eaton

WAS it a specter?

For days I could not answer this question. I am no believer in spiritual
manifestations, yet--But let me tell my story.

I was lodging with my wife on the first floor of a house in
Twenty-seventh street. I had taken the apartments for three months,
and we had already lived in them two and found them sufficiently
comfortable. The back room we used as a bedroom, and while it
communicated with the hall, we invariably made use of the front
parlor-door to go in and out of. Two great leaves of old mahogany
connected the two rooms, and as we received but few friends, these doors
usually stood half open.

One morning, my wife being ill, I left her lying in bed and stepped into
the parlor preparatory to going out for breakfast. It was late--nine
o'clock, probably--and I was hastening to leave, when I heard a sound
behind me--or did I merely feel a presence?--and, turning, saw a strange
and totally unknown woman coming toward me from my wife's room.

As I had just left that room, and as there was no way of getting into it
except through a door we always kept locked, I was so overpowered by my
astonishment that I never thought of speaking or moving until she had
passed me. Then I found voice, and calling out "Madam!" endeavored to
stop her.

But the madam, if madam she was, passed on as quietly, as mechanically
even, as if I had not raised my voice, and, before I could grasp the
fact that she was melting from before me, flitted through the hall to
the front door and so out, leaving behind on the palm of my hand the
"feel" of her wool dress, which I had just managed to touch.

Not understanding her or myself or the strange thrill awakened by
this contact, I tore ope