hem to-day and use them to-night. And you, Joe,
after you have helped me to bring the horses through the thicket, must
go to Blackville and buy food and bring it to us to-night before we
resume our journey."

"Yes, sir; and meantimes, there is some crackers and cheese and
sweetmeats, and likewise a bottle of port wine, in the cart, as you left
in the chapel when you went away."

"Oh, indeed! that will be a godsend, Joe! We must bring that back to the
chapel with us when we come," said Mr. Berners, as with his servant he
bent his steps back to the thicket path.

Sybil, left alone in the interior of the haunted chapel, slept on
soundly for some little time. She had not really been quite unconscious
of her removal thither. She had half waked on being taken from the cart,
but had immediately fallen asleep again; though she was still vaguely
conscious of being borne along to some place of safety and repose, and
that her devoted husband and her faithful servant were her
bearers--vaguely conscious also of being laid down upon some level place
of perfect rest, with a roof above her head; but beyond this she knew
nothing, cared nothing, being too utterly prostrated in mind and body to
rouse herself to any utterances, or even to save herself from sinking to
sleep.

How long she had slept she never could tell, when at length she was
suddenly and fearfully aroused--aroused to a degree of wakefulness that
neither the noisy jolting over the rocky road, nor the painful dragging
through the thorny thicket had been able to effect.

And yet it was but by a touch--the touch of an ice-cold little hand
passing lightly over her face.

She started up in a panic and glared around. All seemed black as pitch,
and at first she could see nothing; but as she strained her eyes, she
dimly discerned the shapes of the gothic windows, with the dark night
sky and the ghostly trees beyond; and she recognized the Haunted Chapel!

They had brought her here while she was sleeping; and now, "in the dead
waste and middle of the night," she had waked up, alone in this
demon-peopled place.

She tried to cry out in her fear; but her voice died in her throat, and
she sank back upon her mattress and closed her eyes, lest some shape of
horror should blast them.

Then again she felt hands at work about her person. They were creeping
under her shoulders and under her limbs; they were lifting her from her
mattress. Her eyes flared open in wild affright, and