begun to discover where she was. The
doors which Aunt Jane had closed gave access, not to mere closets, but
to a spiral stairway, which evidently went from top to bottom of the
house, and was known to some one else beside herself.

Relieved of that slight shudder at the supernatural which sometimes
affects the healthiest nerves, Hope paused to consider. To alarm the
neighborhood was her first thought. A slight murmuring from above
dispelled it; she must first reconnoitre a few steps farther. As
she ascended a little way, a gleam shone upon her, and down the damp
stairway came a fragrant odor, as from some perfumed chamber. Then a
door was shut and reopened. Eager beyond expression, she followed on.
Another step, and she stood at the door of Malbone's apartment.

The room was brilliant with light; the doors and windows were heavily
draped. Fruit and flowers and wine were on the table. On the sofa lay
Emilia in a gay ball-dress, sunk in one of her motionless trances, while
Malbone, pale with terror, was deluging her brows with the water he had
just brought from the well below.

Hope stopped a moment and leaned against the door, as her eyes met
Malbone's. Then she made her way to a chair, and leaning on the back
of it, which she fingered convulsively, looked with bewildered eyes and
compressed lips from the one to the other. Malbone tried to speak, but
failed; tried again, and brought forth only a whisper that broke into
clearer speech as the words went on. "No use to explain," he said.
"Lambert is in New York. Mrs. Meredith is expecting her--to-night after
the ball. What can we do?"

Hope covered her face as he spoke; she could bear anything better than
to have him say "we," as if no gulf had opened between them. She sank
slowly on her knees behind her chair, keeping it as a sort of screen
between herself and these two people,--the counterfeits, they seemed,
of her lover and her sister. If the roof in falling to crush them had
crushed her also, she could scarcely have seemed more rigid or more
powerless. It passed, and the next moment she was on her feet again,
capable of action.

"She must be taken," she said very clearly, but in a lower tone than
usual, "to my chamber." Then pointing to the candles, she said, more
huskily, "We must not be seen. Put them out." Every syllable seemed to
exhaust her. But as Philip obeyed her words, he saw her move suddenly
and stand by Emilia's side.

She put out both arms as if to