About an hour afterwards, when he had gone into the next room to look
for some papers, he heard quiet sounds going on in the kitchen, which
was just at the rear end of the small hall on which the room doors
opened. A moment more and he surmised that his housekeeper must have
again descended for something. "Are you there, Mrs. Martha?" he called.
There was no answer in words, but hearing the kitchen door open, he
looked into the lobby, and there a strange vision flashed on his sight.
His end of the lobby was dark, but in the kitchen doorway, by the light
of the candles she held, he saw his elderly housekeeper arrayed in the
pure white gown.

He paused in sheer astonishment, looking at her, and he observed she
trembled--trembled all over with the meek courage it cost her to thus
exhibit herself; for she appeared to have opened the door for no other
purpose than to let him see her. She said nothing, and he--most men are
cowards with regard to women--he had a vague sense that it was his duty
to ask her why she wore that dress, but he did not do it. He had no
reason to suppose her mad; she had a perfect right to array herself in
full dress at night if she chose; she was a great deal older than he, a
woman worthy of all respect. This was the tenor of his thought--of his
self-excusing, it might be. He bade her good-night again, somewhat
timidly. Surely, he thought, it was her place to make remark, if remark
were needful; but she stood there silent till he had gone back into the
room. Then she shut the kitchen door.

In a little while, however, as stillness reigned in the house, some
presentiment of evil made him think it would be as well to go and see if
Mrs. Martha had finished trying on her finery and gone to bed as usual.
He found the kitchen dark and empty. He went to the foot of her stairs.
There was no chink of light showing from her room. The stillness of the