me. But the widow shrunk from her embrace as though she
feared her, and sunk down trembling on a chair.

'It is the return to this place after so long an absence,' said Emma
gently. 'Pray ring, dear uncle--or stay--Barnaby will run himself and
ask for wine--'

'Not for the world,' she cried. 'It would have another taste--I could
not touch it. I want but a minute's rest. Nothing but that.'

Miss Haredale stood beside her chair, regarding her with silent pity.
She remained for a little time quite still; then rose and turned to Mr
Haredale, who had sat down in his easy chair, and was contemplating her
with fixed attention.

The tale connected with the mansion borne in mind, it seemed, as has
been already said, the chosen theatre for such a deed as it had known.
The room in which this group were now assembled--hard by the very
chamber where the act was done--dull, dark, and sombre; heavy with
worm-eaten books; deadened and shut in by faded hangings, muffling every
sound; shadowed mournfully by trees whose rustling boughs gave ever and
anon a spectral knocking at the glass; wore, beyond all others in
the house, a ghostly, gloomy air. Nor were the group assembled there,
unfitting tenants of the spot. The widow, with her marked and startling
face and downcast eyes; Mr Haredale stern and despondent ever; his niece
beside him, like, yet most unlike, the picture of her father, which
gazed reproachfully down upon them from the blackened wall; Barnaby,
with his vacant look and restless eye; were all in keeping with the
place, and actors in the legend. Nay, the very raven, who had hopped
upon the table and with the air of some old necromancer appeared to be
profoundly studying a great folio volume that lay open on a desk, was
strictly in unison with the rest, and looked like the embodied spirit of
evil biding his time of mischief.

'I scarcely know,' said the widow, breaking silence, 'how to begin. You
will think my mind disordered.'

'The whole tenor of your quiet and reproachless life since you were last
here,' returned Mr Haredale, mildly, 'shall bear witness for you. Why do
you fear to awaken such a suspicion? You do not speak to strangers. You
have not to claim our interest or consideration for the first time. Be
more yourself. Take heart. Any advice or assistance that I can give you,
you know is yours of right, and freely yours.'

'What if I came, sir,' she rejoined, 'I who have but one other friend on
earth, to reject