The ivy creeping up the ancient walls of the castle is rustling and
whispering as the evening breeze sweeps over it. High up the tendrils
climb, past mullioned windows and quaint devices, until they reach even
to the old tower, and twine lovingly round it, and push through the long
apertures in the masonry of the walls of the haunted chamber.

It is here that the shadows cast their heaviest gloom. All this corner
of the old tower is wrapped in darkness, as though to obscure the scene
of terrible crimes of past centuries.

Ghosts of dead-and-gone lords and ladies seem to peer out mysteriously
from the openings in this quaint chamber, wherein no servant, male or
female, of the castle has ever yet been known to set foot. It is full of
dire horrors to them, and replete with legends of by-gone days and
grewsome sights ghastly enough to make the stoutest heart quail.

In the days of the Stuarts an old earl had hanged himself in that room,
rather than face the world with dishonor attached to his name; and
earlier still a beauteous dame, fair but frail, had been incarcerated
there, and slowly starved to death by her relentless lord. There was
even in the last century a baronet--the earldom had been lost to the
Dynecourts during the Commonwealth--who, having quarreled with his
friend over a reigning belle, had smitten him across the cheek with his
glove, and then challenged him to mortal combat. The duel had been
fought in the luckless chamber, and had only ended with the death of
both combatants; the blood stains upon the flooring were large and deep,
and to this day the boards bear silent witness to the sanguinary
character of that secret fight.

Just now, standing outside the castle in the warmth and softness of the