This was my first surprise, for I had not even noticed that the weather
was unpleasant, so completely had I been absorbed by what had been going
on in the house. My next was the bearing and appearance of the stranger
who demanded my hospitality. For though both face and form were unknown
to me, there was that in his aspect which stirred recollections not out
of keeping with the unhappy subject then occupying all my thoughts. Yet
I could not speak his name, or put into words the anticipations that
vaguely agitated me, and led him through the hall and into the
comfortable sitting room so lately vacated by the marquis, with no more
distinct impression in my mind than that something was about to happen
which would complete rather than interrupt the horrors of this eventful
night.

And when the light fell full upon him, and I could see his eager eyes,
this feeling increased, and no sooner had his cloak fallen from his
shoulders and his hat left his head, than I recognized the prominent jaw
and earnest face, and putting no curb on my impetuosity, I exclaimed at
once, and without a doubt:

"Mr. Felt!"

The utterance of this name seemed to cause no surprise to my new guest.

"The same," he replied; "and you are Mrs. Truax, of course. Mr. Tamworth
has described you to me, also this inn, till I feel as if I knew its
every stone. I did not wish to visit it, but I could not help myself. An
unknown influence has been drawing me here for days, and though I
resisted it with all my strength, it finally became so powerful that I
rose from my bed at night, saddled my horse, and started in this
direction. I have been twenty hours on the road, but part of these I
have spent in the thicket just over against you on the opposite side of
the road. For the sight of the house awakened in my mind such a
disturbance that I feared to show myself at the door. A voice out of the
air seemed to cry, 'Not yet! not yet!' Nevertheless I could not go back
nor leave the spot, which, once seen, possessed for me a fatal
fascination."

I was speechless. Good God! were the old psychological influences at
work, and had they acted upon him at forty miles distance?

"You come from Albany?" I at last stammered forth. "You must have had a
wet time of it; it storms heavily, I see."

"Storms?" he repeated, glancing at the cloak he had thrown off. "Great
Heaven! my cloak is saturated, and I did not even know it rained. A
touch of the old spell," he murmured.