and struggling to keep back screams of mad terror, I bury my head in the
bed-clothes."

"But have you never tried to investigate this thing?" I said.

"I did at first. The first night I saw it, I rushed out of bed and made
for the spot. It disappeared at once. I struck a light--there was
nothing whatever in the room."

"Why do you sleep in that room?"

"I must not go away from Lady Studley. My terror is that she should know
anything of this--my greater terror is that the apparition, failing me,
may visit her. I daresay you think I'm a fool, Halifax; but the fact is,
this thing is killing me, brave man as I consider myself."

"Do you see it every night?" I asked.

[Illustration: "IT IS THE MOST GHASTLY, THE MOST HORRIBLE FORM OF
TORTURE.]

"Not quite every night, but sometimes on the same night it comes twice.
Sometimes it will not come at all for two nights, or even three. It is
the most ghastly, the most horrible form of torture that could hurry a
sane man into his grave or into a madhouse."

"I have not the least shadow of doubt," I said, after a pause, "that the
thing can be accounted for."

Sir Henry shook his head. "No, no," he replied, "it is either as you