"How would my heart have leapt at that sound but yesterday!" thought she,
remembering the anxiety with which she had long awaited tidings from her
husband.

"I care not for it now; let them begone, for I will not arise."

But even while a sort of childish fretfulness made her thus resolve, she
was breathing hurriedly, and straining her ears to catch a repetition of
the summons. It is difficult to be convinced of the death of one whom we
have deemed another self. The knocking was now renewed in slow and
regular strokes, apparently given with the soft end of a doubled fist,
and was accompanied by words, faintly heard through several thicknesses
of wall. Margaret looked to her sister's chamber, and beheld her still
lying in the depths of sleep. She arose, placed her foot upon the floor,
and slightly arrayed herself, trembling between fear and eagerness as she
did so.

"Heaven help me!" sighed she. "I have nothing left to fear, and methinks
I am ten times more a coward than ever."

Seizing the lamp from the hearth, she hastened to the window that
overlooked the street-door. It was a lattice, turning upon hinges; and
having thrown it back, she stretched her head a little way into the moist
atmosphere. A lantern was reddening the front of the house, and melting
its light in the neighboring puddles, while a deluge of darkness
overwhelmed every other object. As the window grated on its hinges, a
man in a broad-brimmed hat and blanket-coat stepped from under the
shelter of the projecting story, and looked upward to discover whom his
application had aroused. Margaret knew him as a friendly innkeeper of