, and only since
to-day, can I answer this question.

Sixteen years ago! which makes me sixteen years older. My house, too,
has aged, and the oak parlor--I never refurnished it--is darker,
gloomier, and more forbidding than it was then, and in truth, why should
it not be? When I remember what was revealed to me a week ago, I wonder
that its walls did not drop fungi, and its chill strike death through
the man or woman who was brave enough to enter it. Horrible, horrible
room! You shall be torn from my house if the rest of the structure goes
with you. Neither I nor another shall ever enter your fatal portal
again.

It was a week ago to-day that the coach from New York set down at my
door a stranger of fine and quaint appearance, whose white hair
betokened him to be aged, but whose alert and energetic movements
showed that, if he had passed the line of fourscore, he had still enough
of the fire of youth remaining to make his presence welcome in whatever
place he chose to enter. As had happened sixteen years before, I was
looking out of the window when the coach drove up, and, being at once
attracted by the stranger's person and manner, I watched him closely
while he was alighting, and was surprised to observe what intent and
searching glances he cast at the house.

"He could not be more interested if he were returning to the home of his
fathers," I murmured involuntarily to myself, and hastened to the door
in order to receive him.

He came forward courteously. But after the first few words between us he
turned again and gazed with marked curiosity up and down the road and
again at the house.

"You seem to be acquainted with these parts," I ventured. He smiled.

"This is an old house," he answered, "and you are young." (I am
fifty-five.) "There must have been owners of the place before you. Do
you know their names?"

"I bought the place of Dan Forsyth, and he of one Hammond. I don't know
as I can go back any further than that. Originally the house was the
property of an Englishman. There were strange stories about him, but it
was so long ago that they are almost forgotten."

The stranger smiled again, and followed me into the house. Here his
interest seemed to redouble.

Instantly a thought flashed through my brain.

"He is its ancient owner, the Englishman. I am standing in the presence
of--"

"You wish to know my name," interrupted his genial voice. "It is
Tamworth. I am a Virginian, and hope to stay at you