ot a fit; do come!"

Rising, as was natural, I hastened towards the kitchen, meeting Mrs.
Belden's anxious face in the doorway.

"A poor wood-chopper down the street has fallen in a fit," she said.
"Will you please watch over the house while I see what I can do for him?
I won't be absent any longer than I can help."

And almost without waiting for my reply, she caught up a shawl, threw
it over her head, and followed the urchin, who was in a state of great
excitement, out into the street.

Instantly the silence of death seemed to fill the house, and a dread the
greatest I had ever experienced settled upon me. To leave the kitchen,
go up those stairs, and confront that girl seemed for the moment beyond
my power; but, once on the stair, I found myself relieved from the
especial dread which had overwhelmed me, and possessed, instead, of a
sort of combative curiosity that led me to throw open the door which
I saw at the top with a certain fierceness new to my nature, and not
altogether suitable, perhaps, to the occasion.

I found myself in a large bedroom, evidently the one occupied by Mrs.
Belden the night before. Barely stopping to note certain evidences of
her having passed a restless night, I passed on to the door leading into
the room marked with a cross in the plan drawn for me by Q. It was a
rough affair, made of pine boards rudely painted. Pausing before it, I
listened. All was still. Raising the latch, I endeavored to enter. The
door was locked. Pausing again, I bent my ear to the keyhole. Not a
sound came from within; the grave itself could not have been stiller.
Awe-struck and irresolute, I looked about me and questioned what I had
best do. Suddenly I remembered that, in the plan Q had given me, I had
seen intimation of another door leading into this same room from the one
on the opposite side of the hall. Going hastily around to it, I tried
it with my hand. But it was as fast as the other. Convinced at last that
nothing was left me but force, I spoke for the first time, and, calling
the girl by name, commanded her to open the door. Receiving no response,
I said aloud with an accent of severity:

"Hannah Chester, you are discovered; if you do not open the door, we
shall be obliged to break it down; save us the trouble, then, and open
immediately."

Still no reply.

Going back a step, I threw my whole weight against the door. It creaked
ominously, but still resisted.

Stopping only long enough to be sure