The old woman stumbled hastily down the dark stairs.  “What is the matter?” she cried, entering the room.  “Who is it?  What do you mean?”

“I saw it,” said Tabitha, grasping her convulsively by the shoulder.  “I was coming to you when I saw the figure of a woman in front of me going up the stairs.  Is it—­can it be Ursula come for the soul of Eunice, as she said she would?”

“Or for yours?” said Martha, the words coming from her in some odd fashion, despite herself.

Tabitha, with a ghastly look, fell cowering by her side, clutching tremulously at her clothes.  “Light the lamps,” she cried hysterically.  “Light a fire, make a noise; oh, this dreadful darkness!  Will it never be day!”

“Soon, soon,” said Martha, overcoming her repugnance and trying to pacify her.  “When the day comes you will laugh at these fears.”

“I murdered her,” screamed the miserable woman, “I killed her with fright.  Why did she not give me the money?  ’Twas no use to her.  Ah!  Look there!”

Martha, with a horrible fear, followed her glance to the door, but saw nothing.

“It’s Ursula,” said Tabitha from between her teeth.  “Keep her off!  Keep her off!”

The old woman, who by some unknown sense seemed to feel the presence of a third person in the room, moved a step forward and stood before her.  As she did so Tabitha waved her arms as though to free herself from the touch of a detaining hand, half rose to her feet, and without a word fell dead before her.

At this the old woman’s courage forsook her, and with a great cry she rushed from the room, eager to escape from this house of death and mystery.  The bolts of the great door were stiff with age, and strange voices seemed to ring in her ears as she strove wildly to unfasten them.  Her brain whirled.  She thought that the dead in their distant rooms called to her, and that a devil stood on the step outside laughing and holding the door against her.  Then with a supreme effort she flung it open, and heedless of her night-clothes passed into the bitter night.  The path across the marshes was lost in the darkness, but she found it; the planks over the ditches slippery and narrow, but she crossed them in safety, until at last, her feet bleeding and her breath coming in great gasps, she entered the village and sank down more dead than alive on a cottage doorstep.