"Hush! my Flora, hush! Look at me."

"I am calm again. It fixed its teeth in my throat. Did I faint away?"

"You did, dear; but let me pray you to refer all this to imagination; or
at least the greater part of it."

"But you saw it."

"Yes--"

"All saw it."

"We all saw some man--a housebreaker--It must have been some
housebreaker. What more easy, you know, dear Flora, than to assume some
such disguise?"

"Was anything stolen?"

"Not that I know of; but there was an alarm, you know."

Flora shook her head, as she said, in a low voice,--

"That which came here was more than mortal. Oh, Henry, if it had but
killed me, now I had been happy; but I cannot live--I hear it breathing
now."

"Talk of something else, dear Flora," said the much distressed Henry;
"you will make yourself much worse, if you indulge yourself in these
strange fancies."