"Ah, yes! I am right at last. This is the haunted room. I know my way
now."

I caught a darkling glimpse of a large room, apparently quite furnished;
but how, except from the general feeling of antiquity and mustiness, I
could not tell. Little did I think then what memories--old, now, like
the ghosts that with them haunt the place--would ere long find their
being and take their abode in that ancient room, to forsake it never
more. In strange, half-waking moods, I seem to see the ghosts and the
memories flitting together through the spectral moonlight, and weaving
mystic dances in and out of the storied windows and the tapestried
walls.

At the door of this room she said, "I must leave you here. I will put
down the light a little further on, and you can come for it. I owe you
many thanks. You will not be afraid of being left so near the haunted
room?"

I assured her that at present I felt strong enough to meet all the
ghosts in or out of Hades. Turning, she smiled a sad, sweet smile, then
went on a few paces, and disappeared. The light, however, remained; and
I found the candle, with my plaid, deposited at the foot of a short
flight of steps, at right angles to the passage she left me in. I made
my way back to my room, threw myself on the couch on which she had so
lately lain, and neither went to bed nor slept that night. Before the
morning, I had fully entered that phase of individual development
commonly called _love_, of which the real nature is as great a mystery
to me now, as it was at any period previous to its evolution in myself.