should say.'

"I shook my head, for the riddle seemed quite
unreadable, and as we had already sat up until long
past midnight I begged for my candle, and proposed
to defer our conversation until the morning. Jack,
declaring that none of the beds in the damp old
house was fit to sleep in without a week of
previous airing, insisted upon giving up his room
to me, and passing the night himself on the
dining-room sofa, and, in spite of my
protestations, I was forced to acquiesce in his
plans for my comfort.

"Left alone, I looked with some curiosity round the
gloomy oak-paneled chamber, where the fire-light
flashed on the carved four-poster, with its faded
yellow damask curtains, and lit up the moth-eaten
tapestry that adorned a portion of the upper part
of the walls, but scarcely illumined the dark
corners which lay beyond. There were quaint old
presses and chests roomy enough to hide a dozen
ghosts in, and a portrait of a gentleman in the
elaborate costume of the Stuart period seemed to
look down upon me with strangely haunting eyes.

"'A spooky enough place,' I murmured, 'hallowed by
the spirits of numerous generations, no doubt.
Well, I'll undertake they won't disturb me
to-night, for I am dog-tired and mean to sleep like
a log.'

"I am an old traveler, and was soon in bed and
enjoying a well-earned slumber, but my dreams were
wild, for I seemed now to be driving furiously over
the moorland, pursuing ever the phantom of pretty
Bessie, who, with her bewitching smile, was luring
me into the fog and darkness, and now to be barring
the front door to defend her from some unknown
assailant, whose perpetual rapping rang like an
echo through my brain. With the impotent strength
of dreamland I struggled vainly to close the door,
which was opening slowly to admit the nameless
horror. I seemed to feel a hot breath on my cheek,
and with a wild shriek I woke, to find the
moonlight streaming in through the broad
diamond-paned window, falling in a white shaft
across the floor, while the last embers of the fire
were smoldering to ashes u