of rough wild love; but here and there were dark unintelligible hints at some secret not of love—­some secret that seemed of crime.  “We ought to love each other,” was one of the sentences I remember, “for how everyone else would execrate us if all was known.”  Again:  “Don’t let anyone be in the same room with you at night—­you talk in your sleep.”  And again:  “What’s done can’t be undone; and I tell you there’s nothing against us unless the dead could come to life.”  Here there was underlined in a better handwriting (a female’s), “They do!” At the end of the letter latest in date the same female hand had written these words:  “Lost at sea the 4th of June, the same day as—­”

I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.

Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvellous the advancing night might bring forth.  I roused myself—­laid the letters on the table—­stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering—­and opened my volume of Macaulay.  I read quietly enough till about half-past eleven.  I then threw myself dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own room, but must keep himself awake.  I bade him leave open the door between the two rooms.  Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my bed-head.  I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my Macaulay.

Opposite to me the fire burned clear; and on the hearth-rug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog.  In about twenty minutes I felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught.  I fancied the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place, must have got open; but no—­it was closed.  I then turned my glance to my left, and saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as by a wind.  At the same moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the table—­softly, softly—­no visible hand—­it was gone.  I sprang up, seizing the revolver with the one hand, the dagger with the other; I was not willing that my weapons should share the fate of the watch.  Thus armed, I looked round the floor—­no sign of the watch.  Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out, “Is that you, sir?”

“No; be on your guard.”

The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving quickly backwards and forwards.  He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look so strange that he concentrated all my attention on himself.  Slowly he rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the same wild stare.  I had no time, however, to examine the dog.  Presently my servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human face, it was then.  I should not have recognised him had we met in the streets, so altered was every lineament.  He passed by me quickly, saying in a whisper that seemed scarcely