The clerk, who was the Benjamin of his wicked tribe, threw himself upon their mercy and confessed everything:  the house was so crowded, and he had been so crazed by the demands upon him, that he had understood Colonel Ellison’s application to be for a bed for the young lady in his party, and he had done the very best he could.  If the lady there—­she vanished again—­would give up the room to the two gentlemen, he would find her a place with the housekeeper.  To this the lady consented without difficulty, and the rest dispersing, she kissed one of the sick man’s watchers with “Isn’t it a shame, Bella?” and flitted down the darkness of the corridor.  The rooms upon it seemed all, save the two assigned our travellers, to be occupied by ladies of the troupe; their doors successively opened, and she was heard explaining to each as she passed.  The momentary displeasure which she had shown at her banishment was over.  She detailed the facts with perfect good-nature, and though the others appeared no more than herself to find any humorous cast in the affair, they received her narration with the same amiability.  They uttered their sympathy seriously, and each parted from her with some friendly word.  Then all was still.

“Richard,” said Mrs. Ellison, when in Isabel’s room the travellers had briefly celebrated these events, “I should think you’d hate to leave us alone up here.”

“I do; but you can’t think how I hate to go off alone.  I wish you’d come part of the way with us, Ladies; I do indeed.  Leave your door unlocked, at any rate.”

This prayer, uttered at parting outside the room, was answered from within by a sound of turning keys and sliding bolts, and a low thunder as of bureaus and washstands rolled against the door.  “The ladies are fortifying their position,” said the Colonel to Basil, and the two returned to their own chamber.  “I don’t wish any intrusions,” he said, instantly shutting himself in; “my nerves are too much shaken now.  What an awfully mysterious old place this Quebec is, Mr. March!  I’ll tell you what:  it’s my opinion that this is an enchanted castle, and if my ribs are not walked over by a muleteer in the course of the night, it’s all I ask.”

In this and other discourse recalling the famous adventure of Don Quixote, the Colonel beguiled the labor of disrobing, and had got as far as his boots, when there came a startling knock at the door.  With one boot in his hand and the other on his foot, the Colonel limped forward.  “I suppose it’s that clerk has sent to say he’s made some other mistake,” and he flung wide the door, and then stood motionless before it, dumbly staring at a figure on the threshold,—­a figure with the fringed forehead and pale blue eyes of her whom they had so lately turned out of that room.