"Excuse me--I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious
dreamer--nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my
affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of
your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or
heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our
own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us
away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever
we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither
saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of all was, that for
once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be--and
allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth
in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman
who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did
not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said, dryly,
'I know why: you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever
stayed a second night; none before you a third. But I take it they have
been very kind to you.'

"'They--who?' I asked, affecting to smile.

"'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them;
I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a
servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't
care--I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them,
and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness,
that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her
further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I to get off
so cheaply."

"You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than to