The only article of furniture in the room was a _prie-dieu_ of black
oak. I knelt on this, and gazed on the coffin, and wondered. My
curiosity urged me to go up to it, and turn down the pall, and ascertain
whether the name of the occupant was engraved on the lid. But stronger
than my curiosity was a certain repugnance to go near it which I could
not overcome. That some person was shut up there who during life had
been of importance in the world, I could not doubt. This, too, was the
room in which Lady Chillington took her midnight perambulations, and
that coffin was the object she came to contemplate. Perhaps the occupant
of the coffin came out, and walked with my lady, and held ghostly
converse with her on such occasions. I fancied that even now I could
hear him breathing heavily, and turning over uneasily in his narrow bed.
There seemed a rustling, too, among the folds of the sombre curtains as
though someone were in hiding there; and that low faint sobbing sigh
which quivered through the room, like an accent of unutterable sorrow,
whence did it come? Others than myself were surely there, though I might
not be able to see them.

I knelt on the _prie-dieu_, stirring neither hand nor foot; as
immovable, in fact, except for my breathing, as a figure cut out of
stone. Looking and wondering still, after a time it seemed to me that
the lights were growing dimmer, that the room was growing colder; that
some baleful presence was beside me with malicious intent to gradually
numb and chill the life out of me, to freeze me, body and soul, till the
two could no longer hold together; and that when morning came, if ever
it did come to that accursed room, my husk would be there indeed, but
Janet Hope herself would be gone for ever. A viewless horror stirred my
hair, and caused my flesh to creep. The baneful influence that was upon
me was deepening in intensity; every minute that passed seemed to render
me more powerless to break the spell. Suddenly the clock struck two. At