on business and would not be able to return till late
the following day.

Tina did not enjoy her dinner. The soup had rather a peculiar flavour,
but she knew it was useless to make any comment. The servants either
could not or would not understand, and Ivan invariably upheld them in
everything they did. Unable to bear the man's eyes continually fixed on
her, she told him not to wait, and hurried through the meal so as to get
him out of the way, and be left for the rest of the evening in peace.
The big wood fire appealed to Tina--it was the only thing in that part
of the house that seemed to have any life--and she resolved to sit by
it, and, perhaps, skim through a book. Tina seldom read--in Moscow, all
her evenings were spent at cards. She remembered, however, that somebody
had told her repeatedly, and emphatically, that she ought to read
Tolstoy's "Resurrection," and she had actually brought it with her. Now
she would wade through it. But whether it was the heat of the fire, or
the lateness of the hour, or both, her senses grew more and more drowsy,
and before she had begun to read, she fell asleep.

She was, at length, partially awakened by a loud noise. At first her
sleepy senses paid little attention and she dozed on. But again she was
roused. A noise which grew louder and louder at last compelled her to
shake off sleep, and starting up, she opened the door and looked into
the passage. A few streaks of moonlight, streaming through an iron
grating high up in the wall, enabled her to see a tall figure stealing
softly along the corridor, with its back towards her. The thing was so
extraordinary that for a moment or so she fancied she must still be
dreaming; but the cold night air blowing freely in her face speedily
assured her that what she saw was grim reality. The thing was a
monstrosity, a hideous hybrid of man and beast, and as she gazed at it,
too horror-stricken to move, a second and third form exactly similar to
it crept out from among the shadows against the wall and joined it. And
Tina, yielding to a sudden fascination, followed in their wake. In this
fashion they crossed the hall and ascended the staircase, Tina keeping
well behind them. She knew where they were aiming for, and any little
doubt that she might have had was set at rest, when they turned into the
passage leading to her bedroom. A moaning cry of fear from one of the
children told her that they, too, knew by intuition of their coming
danger. Tin