companion to stop; but perfect as was the silence of the night,
and close as the figures seemed to be, I heard no sound of a voice.
Next I came to a second and smaller window which had been once
boarded up, but with lapse of time the plank had loosened and partly
fallen, and here I paused a moment to look out. It still snowed
slightly, but there was a clear moon, sufficient to throw a ghastly
light upon the outside objects nearest to me. With the sleeve of
my coat I rubbed away the dust and cobwebs which overhung the glass,
and peered out. The two women were still hurrying onward, but the
distance between them was considerably lessened. And now for the
first time a peculiarity about them struck me. It was this, that
the figures were not substantial; they flickered and waved precisely
like flames, as they ran. As I gazed at them the foremost turned
her head to look at the woman behind her, and as she did so, stumbled,
fell, and disappeared. She seemed to have suddenly dropped down
a precipice, so quickly and so completely she vanished. The other
figure stopped, wrung its hands wildly, and presently turned and
fled in the direction of the park-gates, and was soon lost in the
obscurity of the distance. The sights I had just witnessed in the
panelled chamber had not been of a nature to inspire courage in
any one, and I must candidly confess that my knees actually shook
and my teeth rattled as I left the window and darted up the solitary
passage to the baize door at the top of it. Would I had never
unlocked that door! Would that the key had been lost, or that I
had never set foot in this abominable house! Hastily I refastened
the door, hung up the rusty key in its niche, and rushed into my
own room, where I dropped into a chair with a deadly faintness
creeping over me. I looked at my hand, where the clot of blood
had fallen. It seemed to have burnt its way into my flesh, for it
no longer appeared on the surface, but, where it had been was a round,