unnatural stillness. Throughout the evening a strong wind had been
blowing about the house; it had ceased, and without having noted the
tumult, he was now aware of the calm. But what made him so cold? The
surface of the linen was like a film of ice! He rolled himself round,
and like a hedge-hog sought shelter within the circumference of his own
person. But he could not get warm, lie close as he might to his own
door; there was no admittance! Had the room turned suddenly cold? Could
it be that the ghost was near, making the air like that of the sepulcher
from which she had issued? for such ghosts as walk the world at night,
what refuge so fit as their tombs in the day-time! The thought was a
worse horror than he had known himself capable of feeling. He shivered
with the cold. It seemed to pierce to his very bones. A strange and
hideous constriction seized the muscles of his neck and throat; had not
Sefton described the sensation? Was it not a sure sign of ghostly
presence?

How much longer he could have endured, or what would have been the
result of the prolongation of his suffering, I can not tell. Molly would
have found immediate refuge with Him to whom belong all the ghosts
wherever they roam or rest--with Him who can deliver from the terrors of
the night as well as from the perplexities of the day; but Walter felt
his lonely being exposed on all sides.

The handle of the door moved. I am not sure whether ghosts always enter
and leave a room in silence, but the sound horribly shook Walter's
nerves, and nearly made an end of him for a time. But a voice said, "May
I come in?" What he answered or whether he answered, Walter could not
have told, but his terror subsided. The door opened wider, some one
entered, closed it softly, and approached the bed through the dull
fire-light. "I did not think you would be in bed!" said the voice, which