ing crowded upon me; but that which proved the culminating
horror and which finally awakened me, bathed in cold perspiration, was
a dream of two huge green eyes regarding me with a fixed stare,
fascinating and hypnotic, against which evil power I fought in my
dream with all the strength of my will.

Vaguely defined as if in smoke I could perceive the body of the
creature to which these incredible eyes belonged. It was slender and
sinuous and sometimes I thought it to be that of a human being and
sometimes that of an animal. For at one moment it possessed all the
lines of a woman's form and in the next, with those terrible eyes
regarding me from low down upon the ground, it had assumed the shape
of a crouching beast of prey. This fearsome apparition seemed to be
creeping towards me--nearer and nearer, and was about to spring, I
thought, when I awakened as I have said and sat suddenly upright.

One thing I immediately perceived which may have accounted for my bad
dreams; I had been sleeping with the moonlight shining directly upon
my face. Another thing I thought I perceived, but endeavored to assure
myself that it represented the aftermath of an unpleasant nightmare.
This was a lithe shape streaking through my open window--a figment of
the imagination, as I concluded at the time, the tail-end of a dream
visibly retreating in the moment of awakening.

So self-assured of this did I become, that I did not get up to
investigate the matter, nor was there any sound from the road below to
suggest that the figure had been otherwise than imaginary, yet I found
it difficult to woo slumber again, and for nearly an hour I lay
tossing from side to side, listening to the ticking of the
grandfather's clock and constantly seeing in my mind's eye that
deserted supper-room at the Red House.

And presently as I lay thus, I became aware of two things: first of
the howling of dogs, and, second, of a sort of muttered conversation
which seemed to be taking place somewhere near me. Listening intently,
I thought I could distinguish the voice of a man and that of a woman.
Possibly I was not the only wakeful inhabitant of the Abbey Inn was my
first and most natural idea; but it presently became apparent to me
that the speakers were not in the inn, but outside in the road.

Curiosity at last overcame inclination. Of the exact time I was not
aware, but I think dawn could not have been far off, and I naturally
wondered who these might be that co