In they came, scarce knowing how, and found poor little Mrs. Nutter flat upon the floor, in a swoon, her white face and the front of her dress drenched with water.

‘You’ve a scent bottle, Mrs. Macnamara—­let her smell to it,’ said the grim woman in black, coldly, but with a scarcely perceptible gleam of triumph, as she glanced on the horrified faces of the women.

Well, it was a long fainting-fit; but she did come out of it.  And when her bewildered gaze at last settled upon Mrs. Matchwell, who was standing darkly and motionless between the windows, she uttered another loud and horrible cry, and clung with her arms round Mrs. Mack’s neck, and screamed—­

‘Oh!  Mrs. Mack, there she is—­there she is—­there she is.’

And she screamed so fearfully and seemed in such an extremity of terror, that Mary Matchwell, in her sables, glided, with a strange sneer on her pale face, out of the room across the hall, and into the little parlour on the other side, like an evil spirit whose mission was half accomplished, and who departed from her for a season.

‘She’s here—­she’s here!’ screamed poor little Mrs. Nutter.

‘No, dear, no—­she’s not—­she’s gone, my dear, indeed she’s gone,’ replied Mrs. Mack, herself very much appalled.

‘Oh! is she gone—­is she—­is she gone?’ cried Mrs. Nutter, staring all round the room, like a child after a frightful dream.

‘She’s gone, Ma’am, dear—­she isn’t here—­by this crass, she’s gone!’ said Betty, assisting Mrs. Mack, and equally frightened and incensed.

’Oh! oh!  Betty, where is he gone?  Oh!  Mrs. Mack—­oh! no—­no—­never!  It can’t be—­it couldn’t.  It is not he—­he never did it.’

‘I declare to you, Ma’am, she’s not right in her head!’ cried poor Betty, at her wits’ ends.

‘There—­there now, Sally, darling—­there,’ said frightened Mrs. Mack, patting her on the back.

‘There—­there—­there—­I see him,’ she cried again.  ’Oh!  Charley,—­Charley, sure—­sure I didn’t see it aright—­it was not real.’

‘There now, don’t be frettin’ yourself, Ma’am dear,’ said Betty.

But Mrs. Mack glanced over her shoulder in the direction in which Mrs. Nutter was looking, and with a sort of shock, not knowing whether it was a bodily presence or a simulacrum raised by the incantations of Mary Matchwell, she beheld the dark features and white eye-balls of Nutter himself looking full on them from the open door.

‘Sally—­what ails you, sweetheart?’ said he, coming close up to her with two swift steps.

’Oh!  Charley—­’twas a dream—­nothing else—­a bad dream, Charley.  Oh! say it’s a dream,’ cried the poor terrified little woman.  ’Oh! she’s coming—­she’s coming!’ she cried again, with an appalling scream.