“‘Carry out forthwith,’ said I, in a tone of resolution I could with difficulty command, ’carry out your present determination.  Make restitution to the utmost of your power.  Restore all; confess all.’

“‘I will do so and now,’ was her reply.

“Again that bitter, scornful, chilling laugh; and closer to us!  To no ebullition of any earthly emotion can I compare it.  It resembled none.  It conveyed scorn, exultation, defiance, hatred.  It seemed an uncontrollable burst of triumph over a parting and ruined soul.  Again, I gazed steadfastly on the dying woman.  A spasm convulsed her countenance.  She pointed feebly to some unseen object—­unseen at least by me—­and clasped her hands with an imploring gesture.  Another spasm came on-a second-a third—­and all was silence.  I was alone with the dead.”

* * * * *

“And you are persuaded that these sounds were real and not fanciful, that imagination had nothing to do with the scene?” said the younger of the three when the aged speaker had concluded.

The reply was immediate.

“I state simply what I heard; that, and no more.  No opportunity for trick existed.  The cottage had one door, and but one.  The dying woman and myself were the only parties within its walls.  We were locked in from without:  until the attendant returned and unclosed the door there was no possibility of either entering or quitting the dwelling.  I was alone with the dead for upward of an hour—­no enviable vigil—­when it pleased her unfeeling and gossiping retainer to return and release me.  Believe it, say you?  I do believe it—­and most firmly—­as fact and not fancy.”

“And what say you, Major?” pursued the questioner, turning to his military companion.

“I believe it also, and the more readily from recollecting what once occurred to myself.  Soon after my awkward hit at Vittoria, where I received a bullet, which I carry about with me to this hour, I was ordered home on sick leave.  Landing at Falmouth from a filthy transport, feeble, feverish, solitary and wretched, I was recognized by a former intimate, who followed me to my inn and insisted upon taking me down with him into ——­shire.  Rest and country air, he was sure, would recruit me.  In vain I explained the wretched cripple I was.  In vain I submitted that the ‘hospital mates,’ one and all, entertained the worst opinion of my injury.  He would take no denial.  It was a case, he contended, not for the knife or the doctor; but for beef-steaks and Barclay’s stout.  And this opinion he would make good, in my instance, against the whole hospital staff at home and abroad.  Too weak to contest the point, I gave in; and promised that, if living, that day week should find me at ——­ House.  The first part of my journey I made out with comparatively little suffering.  The latter part, where I was obliged to have recourse to a hack chaise, neither wind nor weather tight—­ill hung, and badly driven, was torture.  At length, unable to endure longer agony, I got out; and bidding the postboy drive with my luggage to ——­ House, limped along across the fields under the pilotage of an old laborer—­it was a work of time—­to my destination.