s. Winterose.

Both of the laborers started on the errand.

Mrs. Winterose turned to her patient.

"What place is this; and who are you?" he inquired.

"Why, don't you know? This is Black Hall, and I am the caretaker."

"Black Hall!" echoed the man, starting up and gazing around him with an
excitement that caused his wound to break out bleeding again. "Black
Hall! Is it here that I must die? Here, and--great Heaven!--in the very
room where the crime was committed! In the very room haunted by her
memory!"

And covering his face with his hands, he fell back upon the pillow.

"Tabby, more brandy!" hastily exclaimed the old lady, as she nervously
pressed a fresh piece of lint into the gushing wound.

"Yes, more brandy," he faintly whispered; "keep me alive, if possible,
till the lawyer comes."

Miss Tabby brought the stimulant, and Mrs. Winterose put it to his lips.

"But, oh, this room! this fatal room! this haunted room!" he murmured,
with a shudder.

"Be quiet, good man; this an't the room where the lady was murdered,"
said Miss Tabby.

"And which is haunted by her ghost to this day," put in Miss Libby, who
had come up to the side of the bed.

"Not--not the room where Rosa was murdered this day fifteen years ago?"
murmured the man, gazing around him. "Am I delirious, then? It seems the
very same room, only with different furniture."

"It is the correspondial room in this wing. T'other room is in t'other
wing," explained Miss Tabby.

"And yet, what difference? what difference?" he murmured, restlessly.

"Mother," whispered Miss Tabby, "it seems to me as I've see a this man
before."

"Shouldn't wonder," replied the old lady in a low tone. "Mr. Horace
Blondelle has been living at the Dubarry Springs, within ten miles of
us, for the last thirteen or fourteen years, and it would be queer if
you hadn't seen him before."

"Queer or not, I never _did_ see Mr. Horace Blondelle, to know him as
sich, in all my life before. And that an't what I mean neither, mother.
I have seen this man in a fright somewhere or other."

"The man in a fright?"

"No; _me_ in a fright when I saw him."

"Hush! don't whisper! See, it disturbs him," said the old lady.

And in truth the wounded man had turned to listen to them, and was
gazing uneasily from one to the other.

When they became silent, he beckoned Miss Tabby to approach.

She bent over him.

"Now, look at me well, old girl," he whispered faintly, "and see if yo