one," I said to myself, "that I find the old lady asleep over
the fire."

The room I found in darkness except for the firelight. I could see
little within it. I paused on the threshold and made a polite inquiry.

"May I come in?" I asked in a tone intended to be loud enough to wake
the old lady.

No answer.

I advanced into the room with my candle and set it on the table, then I
struck a match and lit two more of the candles in the sconces.

The room was empty!

This placed me rather in a dilemma. I had no further means of
announcing my presence; I could only wait.

I sat down by the fire and began to look around.

Comfortable, even luxurious as the room was with its abundance of
valuable knick-knacks and pictures, it had an eerie look about it. The
eyes of the figures in the pictures seemed following me about.

I got up and lit two more of the candles in the sconces on the walls.
Then I returned to my seat, made up the fire, and waited the course of
events.

I waited thus quite a quarter of an hour, during which nothing
occurred, and then I heard sounds which almost made me jump from my
chair.

The first was a long, gasping breath, followed after an interval by a
groan, a long wailing groan as of one in the deepest suffering.

I immediately rose from my chair, and caught a glimpse of my white face
as I did so in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece.

I stood for some seconds on the hearthrug, and then the groan was
repeated; it came from the direction of a heavy curtain which hung in
one corner of the room, and which I had taken, on the previous day, to
be the covering of a cabinet or a recess in the wall perhaps for some
of the old lady's out-door clothing.

I tore it on one side now and found that it concealed a door. The knob
turned in my hand and I entered the room beyond; it was in total
darkness, and I at once returned to the sitting-room for candles.

I took two in my hands and advanced once again, with an effort, into
the dark room.

The sight that met my gaze there almost caused me to drop them. It was
a handsomely furnished bedroom, and in the farther corner was the bed.
On it lay the old lady wrapped in a white quilted silk dressing-robe.

The whole of the breast of this garment was saturated with blood!

With the candles trembling in my hands I advanced to the side of the
bed, and the poor soul's eyes looked up at me while she acknowledged my
coming with a groan.

Looking d