lest some of the servants in the
opposite wing might trace our progress towards the part of the castle
unused by any one except my husband. Somehow, I had always the feeling
that all the domestics, except Amante, were spies upon me, and that I
was trammelled in a web of observation and unspoken limitation
extending over all my actions.

There was a light in the upper room; we paused, and Amante would have
again retreated, but I was chafing under the delays. What was the harm
of my seeking my father's unopened letter to me in my husband's study?
I, generally the coward, now blamed Amante for her unusual timidity.
But the truth was, she had far more reason for suspicion as to the
proceedings of that terrible household than I had ever known of. I
urged her on, I pressed on myself; we came to the door, locked, but
with the key in it; we turned it, we entered; the letters lay on the
table, their white oblongs catching the light in an instant, and
revealing themselves to my eager eyes, hungering after the words of
love from my peaceful, distant home. But just as I pressed forward to
examine the letters, the candle which Amante held, caught in some
draught, went out, and we were in darkness. Amante proposed that we
should carry the letters back to my salon, collecting them as well as
we could in the dark, and returning all but the expected one for me;
but I begged her to return to my room, where I kept tinder and flint,
and to strike a fresh light; and I remained alone in the room, of which
I could only just distinguish the size, and the principal articles of
furniture: a large table, with a deep, overhanging cloth, in the
middle, escritoires and other heavy articles against the walls; all
this I could see as I stood there, my hand on the table close by the
letters, my face towards the window, which, both from the darkness of
the wood growing high up the mountain-side and the faint light of the
declining moon, seemed only like an oblong of paler purpler black than
the shadowy room. How much I remembered from my one instantaneous
glance before the candle went out, how much I saw as my eyes became
accustomed to the darkness, I do not know, but even now, in my dreams,
comes up that room of horror, distinct in its profound shadow. Amante
could hardly have been gone a minute before I felt an additional gloom
before the window, and heard soft movements outside--soft, but
resolute, and continued until the end was accomplished, and t