drive for Miss Butterworth?"

"She shall do both," Loreen answered. "When she is tired of tramping
through dusty chambers and examining the decayed remnants of old
furniture which encumber them, William stands ready to drive her over
the hills, where she will find views well worth her attention."

"Thank you," said I. "It is a pleasant prospect." But inwardly I uttered
anything but thanks; rather asked myself if I had not played the part of
a fool in ascribing so much importance to the events of the past night,
and decided almost without an argument that I had.

However, beliefs die hard in a mind like mine, and though I was ready to
consider that an inflamed imagination may often carry us beyond the
bounds of fact and even into the realm of fancy and misconception, I yet
was not ready to give up my suspicions altogether, or to acknowledge
that I had no foundation for the fear that something uncanny if not
awful had taken place under this roof the night before. The very
naturalness I observed in this hitherto restrained trio might be the
result of the removal of some great strain, and if that was the
case--Ah, well, alertness is the motto of the truly wise. It is when
vigilance sleeps that the enemy gains the victory. I would not let
myself be deceived even at the cost of a little ridicule. Amelia
Butterworth was still awake, even under a semblance of well-laid
suspicion.

My footsteps were not dogged after this as they had hitherto been in my
movements about the house. I was allowed to go and come and even to
stray into the second long corridor, without any other let than my own
discretion and good breeding. Lucetta joined me, to be sure, after a
while, but only as guide and companion. She took me into rooms I forgot
the next minute, and into others I remember to this day as quaint
memorials of a past ever and always interesting to me. We ransacked the
house, yet after all was over and I sat down to rest in my own room, two
formidable questions rose in my mind for which I found no satisfactory
answer. Why, with so many more or less attractive bedchambers at their
command, had they chosen to put me into a hole, where the very flooring
was unsafe, and the outlook the most dismal that could be imagined? and
why, in all our peregrinations in and out of rooms, had we always passed
one door without entering? She had said that it was William's--a
sufficient explanation, if true, and I have no doubt it was,--but the
chang