nighttime seeming to come from the direction of his sweetheart's bedroom.
He ran hurriedly for her father and the two of them raced to her room.
They found her awake and ill with sheer terror, having been awakened by
the neighing, seemingly close to her bed.

"The night before I arrived, there had been a fresh happening and they
were all in a frightfully nervy state, as you can imagine.

"I spent most of the first day, as I have hinted, in getting hold of
details; but after dinner I slacked off and played billiards all the
evening with Beaumont and Miss Hisgins. We stopped about ten o'clock and
had coffee and I got Beaumont to give me full particulars about the thing
that had happened the evening before.

"He and Miss Hisgins had been sitting quietly in her aunt's boudoir
whilst the old lady chaperoned them, behind a book. It was growing dusk
and the lamp was at her end of the table. The rest of the house was not
yet lit as the evening had come earlier than usual.

"Well, it seems that the door into the hall was open and suddenly the
girl said: 'H'sh! what's that?'

"They both listened and then Beaumont heard it--the sound of a horse
outside of the front door.

"'Your father?' he suggested, but she reminded him that her father was
not riding.

"Of course they were both ready to feel queer, as you can suppose, but
Beaumont made an effort to shake this off and went into the hall to see