too fearful for human endurance; and long after
the sound had ceased it seemed to the terrified imagination of the old
servant to roll through the deserted passages in bursts of unnatural
laughter. After a few moments Sir Robert said:

'Can't you send him away? Why does he come so soon? O God! O God! let
him leave me for an hour; a little time. I can't see him now; try to
get him away. You see I can't go down now; I have not strength. O God!
O God! let him come back in an hour; it is not long to wait. He cannot
lose anything by it; nothing, nothing, nothing. Tell him that; say
anything to him.'

The servant went down. In his own words, he did not feel the stairs
under him till he got to the hall. The figure stood exactly as he had
left it. He delivered his master's message as coherently as he could.
The stranger replied in a careless tone:

'If Sir Robert will not come down to me, I must go up to him.'

The man returned, and to his surprise he found his master much more
composed in manner. He listened to the message, and though the cold
perspiration rose in drops upon his forehead faster than he could wipe
it away, his manner had lost the dreadful agitation which had marked
it before. He rose feebly, and casting a last look of agony behind him,
passed from the room to the lobby, where he signed to his attendant not
to follow him. The man moved as far as the head of the staircase,
from whence he had a tolerably distinct view of the hall, which was
imperfectly lighted by the candle he had left there.

He saw his master reel, rather than walk down the stairs, clinging all
the way to the banisters. He walked on, as if about to sink every moment
from weakness. The figure advanced as if to meet him, and in passing
struck down the light. The servant could see no more; but there was
a sound of struggling, renewed at intervals with silent but fearful
energy. It was evident, however, that the parties were approaching the
door, for he heard the solid oak sound twice or thrice, as the feet of
the combatants, in shuffling hither and thither over the floor, struck
upon it. After a slight pause he heard the door thrown open with such
violence that the leaf seemed to strike the side-wall of the hall, for
it was so dark without that this could only be surmised by the sound.
The struggle was renewed with an agony and intenseness of energy
that betrayed itself in deep-drawn gasps. One desperate effort, which
terminated in the breakin