into the obscurity from whence he expected to see some melancholy
phantom emerge; but almost immediately a gust of wind driving
through the broken square of a dormer window made it grind upon its
hinges and give out a plaintive sound, which reverberated through
the corridor. Gilbert then fancied that what he had taken for a
sigh was only the moaning of the wind, counterfeiting in its
melancholy gambols the voice of human grief. Resuming his ascent,
he had already mounted some steps, when a second groan, still more
dismal than the first, reached his ears, and froze the blood in his
veins. He was sure he could not be deceived now; the wind had no
such accents--it was a wail, sharp, harsh, and heartrending, which
seemed as though it might come from the bosom of a specter.

A thousand sinister suppositions assailed Gilbert's mind, but he
gave himself no time to reflect. Agitated, panting, his head on
fire, he sprang with one bound down the staircase, and reaching the
entrance of the gallery, cried out in a trembling voice, and
scarcely knowing what he said:

"Who's there? Who wants assistance? I, Gilbert, am ready to come
to his aid--"

His voice was swallowed up and lost in the somber arches of the
corridor. No answer; the darkness remained dumb. In the rapidity
of his movement, Gilbert had extinguished his candle; he prepared
to relight it, when a hat flew by and struck his forehead with his
wings. The start which this unforeseen attack gave him made him
drop the candle; he stooped to pick it up, but could not find it.
In spite of this accident, he walked on. A feeble ray of
moonlight, which came in by the dormer window and shed through the