quired Sybil, seeing that he still remained silent, "what do
you think now, Lyon?"

"I think," he answered promptly, "that I will search the church."

"There is not a hiding-place for anything bigger than a rat or a bird,"
said his wife, glancing around upon the bare walls, floor, and ceiling.

Nevertheless Lyon Berners walked up to the side of the altar where he
had seen the shadow disappear. Sybil followed close behind him. He
examined the altar all around. It was built of stonework like the
church; that was the reason it had stood so long. But he experienced a
great surprise when he looked at the side where the shadow had vanished;
for there he found a small iron-grated door, through which he dimly
discerned the head of a flight of stone steps, the continuation of which
was lost in the darkness below. Glancing over the top of the door, he
read, in iron letters, the inscription:

"DUBARRY. 1650."

"What is it, dear Lyon?" inquired Sybil, anxiously looking over his
shoulder.

"Good Heaven! It is the family vault of the wicked old Dubarrys, who
once owned all the land hereabouts, except the Black Valley Manor, and
who built this chapel for their sins; for of them it might not be said
with truth, that 'all their sons were true, and all their daughters
pure,' but just exactly the reverse. However, they are well forgotten
now!"

"And this is their family vault?"

"Yes; but I had almost forgotten its existence here."

"Lyon, can my mysterious visitor have hidden herself in that vault?"

"I can search it, at any rate," answered Mr. Berners, wrenching away at
the grated door.

But it resisted all his efforts, as if its iron bars had been bedded in
the solid masonry.

"No," he answered; "your visitor, if you had one, could not possibly
have entered here. See how fast the door is."

"Lyon," whispered Sybil, in a deep and solemn voice, "Lyon, could she
possibly have come out from there?"

"Nonsense, dear! Are you thinking of ghosts?"

"This is the 'Haunted Chapel,' you know," whispered Sybil.

"Bosh, my dear; you are not silly enough to believe that!"

"But my strange visitor?"

"You had no visitor, dear Sybil; you had a dream, and your dream had
every feature of nightmare in it--the deep, death-like, yet
half-conscious and much disturbed sleep; the sense of heavy oppression;
the apparition hanging over you; the inability to awake; even the
grappling at your throat, and the swift disappearance of the visio