last met I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London."

"Really haunted,--and by what?--ghosts?"

"Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks
ago my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing
a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill,
'Apartments, Furnished.' The situation suited us; we entered the
house, liked the rooms, engaged them by the week,--and left them
the third day. No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to
stay longer; and I don't wonder at it."

"What did you see?"

"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 indefinable
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