the fire light and the lamp light;
and in the glow I saw the girl standing between the hearth and the bed.
I spoke to her, asking her how she dared intrude into my most sacred
privacy; and then she silently glided from the spot. But I told her she
should not leave the room until she had given some account of herself.
And I put forth my hand to stop her, but the moment I did so I received
a shock as from some powerful galvanic battery! a tremendous shock that
threw me down upon my face. I knew no more until I came to my senses and
found myself here, with you watching over me. Now, Philip, tell me that
was an optical illusion, if you dare,' said the lady, solemnly.

"'Yes, love, I dare. I tell you that what you saw _was_ an optical
illusion.'

"'--But what I felt?'

"'--Was a slight--a very slight attack of catalepsy. Both the vision and
the fit, dear, took their rise in some abnormal state of the nervous
system,' said Philip Dubarry; and feeling almost pleased with his own
explanation of the mystery, he tried to persuade himself that it was the
true one."

"But his wife turned her face to the wall, saying, however.

"'Well, at any rate, I am glad that the girl in the red cloak is not
flesh and blood, Phil. I would rather she should be an 'optical
illusion' or a fit of 'catalepsy,' or even a 'spectre,' than a
sweetheart of yours, as I first took, her to be.

"'Be not afraid. You have no living rival, Alicia,' answered her husband.

"And the reconciliation between the husband and the wife was complete
from that time forth.

"But somehow the condition of the lady was worse than before.

"_She was haunted_.

"She knew herself to be haunted; but whether by a spectral illusion or a
real spectre, she could not know. In the glow of the fire light, in the
shadow of the bed-curtains in the illuminated drawing-room, on the dark
staircase, wherever and whenever she found herself alone, the vision of
the girl in the red cloak crossed her path. She did not speak to it, or
try to stop it again. She did not wish to risk another such an electric
shock as should 'cast her shuddering on her face.' But her health wasted
under the trial. Her nerves failed. She grew fearful of being left alone
for an instant; nothing would induce her to go into any room in the
house without an attendant. She contracted a habit of looking fearfully
over her shoulder, and sometimes suddenly screaming.

"Nor was the mistress of the house the only s