the young man prepared to encounter the alarming object
which had already so greatly intimidated his friend.
Carefully drawing the blanket hood over his head, he rose
from his seat, and, with the energetic movement of one
who has formed some desperate determination, turned his
back to the fire-place, and threw his eyes rapidly and
eagerly upon the window. They fell only on the rude
patchwork of which it was principally composed. The
female had quitted the room.

"You must have been deceived," he whispered, keeping his
eye still bent upon the window, and with so imperceptible
a movement of the lips that sound alone could have betrayed
he was speaking,--"I see nothing to justify your alarm.
Look again."

The younger officer once more directed his glance towards
the window, and with a shuddering of the whole person,
as he recollected what had met his eye when he last looked
upon it. "It is no longer there, indeed," he returned in
the same scarcely audible tone. "Yet I could not be
mistaken; it was between those two corner squares of wood
in the lower sash."

"Perhaps it was merely a reflection produced by the lamp
on the centre pane," rejoined his friend, still keeping
his eye riveted on the suspicious point.

"Impossible! but I will examine the window from the spot
on which I stood when I first beheld it."