is not more than
twenty miles from you, and about three or four, I believe,
from the little village of Inistioge; it is called Corrig-
O'Neal,--a place of some importance once, but now, as I
hear, a ruin. Go thither, Michel, and tell me correctly all
these several points. First, does the character of the river
scenery suddenly change at this spot, and, from an aspect of
rich and leafy beauty, exhibit only dark and barren
mountains without a tree or a shrub? Is the old manor-house
itself only a short distance from the stream, and backed by
these same gloomy mountains? The house itself, if unaltered,
should be high-peaked in roof, with tall, narrow windows,
and a long terrace in front; an imitation, in fact, of an
old French chateau. These, as you will see, are such facts
as might have been heard from another; but now I come to
some less likely to have been so learned.

"From this boy's wanderings, I collect that there is a
woodland path through these grounds, skirting the river in
some places, and carried along the mountain-side by a track
escarped in the rock itself. If this ever existed, its
traces will still be visible. I am most curious to know this
fact. I can see the profound impression it has made on the
youth's mind, by the various ways in which he recurs to it,
and the deep emotion it always evokes. At times, indeed, his
revelations grow into something like actual descriptions of
an event he had witnessed; as, for instance, last night he
started from his sleep, his brow all covered with
perspiration, and his eyes glaring wildly. 'Hush!' he cried;
'hush! He is crossing the garden, now; there he is at the
door; lie still--lie still.' I tried to induce him to talk
on, but he shuddered timidly, and merely said, 'It's all
over, he has strewn leaves over the spot, let us go away.'
you will perhaps say that I attach undue importance to what
may be the mere outpourings of a fevered intellect, but
there is an intensity in the feeling which accompanies them,
and, moreover, there is a persistence in the way he always
comes back to them, that are not like the transient terrors
that haunt distracted minds. No, Michel, there is a mystery,
and a dreadful one, connected with this vision. Remember!
that the secret of Godfrey's death