directly towards the cabinet. He
fixed his eyes thereon a few seconds only, when Leonora saw him start
up suddenly with a troubled aspect and grasp the hilt of his sword.
Then turning to the painter he said, sternly--

"So!--We have intruders here, I trow."

"Intruders? None!" was the artist's reply, without betraying either
surprise or alarm.

"That we'll see presently," said the cavalier, hastening to the
cabinet; which, with hearty good-will, he essayed to open.

"Why this outrage?" inquired the painter, colouring with a hectic
flush.

"Because 'tis my good pleasure," was the haughty reply. The door
resisted his utmost efforts. "Doubtless held by some one within. Open,
or by this good sword I'll make a passage through both door and
carcase."

The hinges slowly gave way, the folding-doors swung open, and
displayed a grinning skeleton.

"Ah! what lodger is this?"

"Mine art requires it," said the painter, with a ghastly smile; but in
that smile was an expression so fearful, yet mysterious, that even De
Vessey quailed before it. Another miniature portrait, a precise copy
of the one in hand, hung from the neck of the skeleton.

Leonora, with a loud shriek, covered her face; but the lover, though
far from satisfied himself, strove to assure his mistress, and
besought her not to indulge any apprehension.

"You are disturbed, lady," said the artist. "'Tis but a harmless piece
of earth, a mouldering fabric of dust, a thing, a form we must all one
day assume. But to-morrow, to-morrow, if you will, we resume our
work."

Leonora, relieved by the intimation, gladly consented, fain for a
while to escape from this terrible chamber.

"Nought living was there, of a truth," said the cavalier, in evident
perplexity, as they regained their coach. "But I saw plain enough, or
imagination played me the prank, a semblance of a bright and flashing
eye on the spot pointed out. Something incomprehensible hangs about
the whole!"

Leonora agreed in this conclusion, expressing a fear lest harm should
happen to themselves thereby. They were not ignorant of the whispers
afloat, but hitherto treated them either with ridicule or
indifference. Suspicion, however, once awake, mystery once
apprehended, every circumstance, even the most trivial, is seized
upon, the mind bending all to one grand object which haunts and
excites the imagination.

Having left his companion at her brother's dwelling, De Vessey came to
his own, moody and