, and she committed herself to the result. What share the
handsome, dark, and melancholy-looking stranger had in this decision
she did not pause to inquire, nor indeed could she have much if any
suspicion of the secret influence he excited. There was danger, and
this danger could only be averted by her interference: what might be
curiosity was at any rate her duty; and she, feeling mightily like
some devoted heroine, would not shrink from the trial. When once
brought to a decision she felt a load taken from her breast; she
breathed more freely, and her tread was more vigorous and elastic. She
left her chamber with a lofty mien, and the gentle Alice felt more
like the proud mistress of an empire than the inhabitant of a little
country dwelling when she re-entered the parlour: yet there was a
restless glance from her eye which ever and anon would start aside
from visible objects and wander about, apparently without aim or
discrimination. Her brother was busied, happily, with domestic duties,
too much engaged to notice any unusual disturbance in her demeanour,
and Alice employed her time to little profit until she heard the
appointed signal for rest. As they bade the usual "good-night," her
heart smote her: she looked on the unconscious, unsuspecting aspect of
her brother, and the whole secret of her heart was on her tongue: it
did not escape her lips; but the tear stood in her eye; and as she
closed the door it sounded like the signal of some long separation--as
though the portal had for ever closed upon her.

Wrapped in a dark mantle, with cap and hood, the maiden stepped forth
from her little closet about midnight. She bore a silver lamp that
waved softly in the night-wind as she went with a noiseless, timid
step through the passages to the haunted chamber. The room wherein the
beggar slept was somewhat detached from the rest of the dormitories. A
low gallery led by a narrow corridor to a flight of some two or three
steps into this room, now used for the stowage of lumber. It was said
to have been one of the apartments in the old house, forming a sort of
peduncle to the new, not then removed, like a remnant of the shell
sticking to the skirts of the new-fledged bird. This adjunct, the
beggar's dwelling, is now gone. An ancient doorcase with a grotesque
carving disclosed the entrance. She paused before it, not without a
secret apprehension of what might be going on within. For the first
time she felt the novelty, not to