midnight, and after that he's got to take her to his daughter's on
Carey Street. It will be one o'clock at least before he can be back."

I hid my satisfaction. Fate was truly auspicious. I would make good use
of his absence. There was nobody else in the house whose surveillance I
feared.

"Pray send for the baby now," I exclaimed. "I am eager to begin our
merry evening."

She smiled and rang the bell for Letty, the nurse.

Late that night I left my room and stole softly down-stairs. Mrs.
Packard had ordered a bed made up for herself in the nursery and had
retired early. So had Ellen and Letty. The house was therefore clear
below stairs, and after I had passed the second story I felt myself
removed from all human presence as though I were all alone in the house.

This was a relief to me, yet the experience was not a happy one. Ellen
had asked permission to leave the light burning in the hall during the
mayor's absence, so the way was plain enough before me; but no parlor
floor looks inviting after twelve o'clock at night, and this one held
a secret as yet unsolved, which did not add to its comfort or take
the mysterious threat from the shadows lurking in corners and under
stairways which I had to pass. As I hurried past the place where the
clock had once stood, I thought of the nurses' story and of the many
frightened hearts which had throbbed on the stairway I had just left and
between the walls I was fast approaching; but I did not turn back. That
would have been an acknowledgment of the truth of what I was at this
very time exerting my full faculties to disprove.

I knew little about the rear of the house and nothing about the cellar.
But when I had found my way into the kitchen and lit the candle I had
brought from my room, I had no difficulty in deciding which of the
many doors led below. There is something about a cellar door which is
unmistakable, but it took me a minute to summon up courage to open it
after I had laid my hand on its old-fashioned latch. Why do we so hate
darkness and the chill of unknown regions, even when we know they are
empty of all that can hurt or really frighten us? I was as safe there
as in my bed up-stairs, yet I had to force myself to consider more than
once the importance of my errand and the positive result it might have
in allaying the disturbance in more than one mind, before I could
lift that latch and set my foot on the short flight which led into the
yawning blackness benea