There is, beside, the 'link-man', a lank, dark-faced, black-haired man, in
a sable suit, with a link or torch in his hand. It usually only smoulders,
with a deep red glow, as he visits his beat. The library is one of the
rooms he sees to. Unlike 'Lady Rachel,' as the maids called her, he is seen
only, never heard. His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet.
The lurid glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and
face, and, except when much perturbed, his link never blazes. On those
occasions, however, as he goes his rounds, he ever and anon whirls it
around his head, and it bursts into a dismal flame. This is a fearful omen,
and always portends some direful crisis or calamity. It occurs, only once
or twice in a century.

I don't know whether Madame had heard anything of these phenomena; but she
did report which very much frightened me and Mary Quince. She asked us who
walked in the gallery on which her bed-room opened, making a rustling with
her dress, and going down the stairs, and breathing long breaths here and
there. Twice, she said, she had stood at her door in the dark, listening to
these sounds, and once she called to know who it was. There was no answer,
but the person plainly turned back, and hurried towards her with an
unnatural speed, which made her jump within her door and shut it.

When first such tales are told, they excite the nerves of the young and the
ignorant intensely. But the special effect, I have found, soon wears out
The tale simply takes it's place with the rest. It was with Madame's
narrative.

About a week after its relation, I had my experience of a similar sort.
Mary Quince went down-stairs for a night-light, leaving me in bed, a candle
burning in the room, and being tired. I fell asleep before her return.