"Begone! You're doomed! doomed! doomed!" shrieked the witch,
retreating into her hut.

Cap laughed and stroked the neck of her horse, saying:

"Gyp, my son, that was old Nick's wife, who was with us just this
instant, and now, indeed, Gyp, if we are to see the Hidden House
this afternoon, we must get on!"

And so saying she followed the path that wound half-way around the
Punch Bowl and then along the side of a little mountain torrent
called the Spout, which, rising in an opposite mountain, leaped from
rock to rock, with many a sinuous turn, as it wound through the
thicket that immediately surrounded the Hidden House until it
finally jetted through a subterranean channel into the Devil's Punch
Bowl.

Capitola was now, unconsciously, upon the very spot, where,
seventeen years before, the old nurse had been forcibly stopped and
compelled to attend the unknown lady.

As Capitola pursued the path that wound lower and lower into the
dark valley the gloom of the thicket deepened. Her thoughts ran on
all the horrible traditions connected with the Hidden House and
Hollow--the murder and robbery of the poor peddler--the mysterious
assassination of Eugene Le Noir; the sudden disappearance of his
youthful widow; the strange sights and sounds reported to be heard
and seen about the mansion; the spectral light at the upper gable
window; the white form seen flitting through the chamber; the pale
lady that in the dead of night drew the curtains of a guest that