noiselessly approached the table on which yet lay the phial. His hand
closed on it firmly. He resolved to carry it away, and consider next
morning what next to do. At all events, it might contain some proof to
back his tale and justify his suspicions. When he came once more into
the corridor, he made a quick rush onwards, and luckily arrived at the
staircase. There the blood-red stains reflected on the stone floors from
the blazoned casements daunted him little less than the sight at which
his hair still bristled. He scarcely drew breath till he had got into
his own little crib, in the wing set apart for the stable-men, when, at
length, he fell into broken and agitated sleep,--the visions of all that
had successively disturbed him waking, united confusedly, as in one
picture of gloom and terror. He thought that he was in his old loft in
St. Giles's, that the Gravestealer was wrestling with Varney for his
body, while he himself, lying powerless on his pallet, fancied he should
be safe as long as he could retain, as a talisman, his child's coral,
which he clasped to his heart. Suddenly, in that black, shapeless garb,
in which he had beheld her, Madame Dalibard bent over him with her stern,
colourless face, and wrenched from him his charm. Then, ceasing his
struggle with his horrible antagonist, Varney laughed aloud, and the
Gravestealer seized him in his deadly arms.




CHAPTER XXII.

THE TAPESTRY CHAMBER.

When Beck woke the next morning, and gradually recalled all that had so
startled and appalled him the previous night, the grateful creature felt,