he darkness is unsafe.'

Gerard Douw, forgetting for the moment her repeated injunctions in the
immediate impulse, stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in order
to supply what she desired.

'O God I do not go, dear uncle!' shrieked the unhappy girl; and at the
same time she sprang from the bed and darted after him, in order, by her
grasp, to detain him.

But the warning came too late, for scarcely had he passed the threshold,
and hardly had his niece had time to utter the startling exclamation,
when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as
if swung to by a strong blast of wind.

Schalken and he both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate
efforts could not avail so much as to shake it.

Shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber, with all the piercing
loudness of despairing terror. Schalken and Douw applied every energy
and strained every nerve to force open the door; but all in vain.

There was no sound of struggling from within, but the screams seemed to
increase in loudness, and at the same time they heard the bolts of the
latticed window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill as
if thrown open.

One LAST shriek, so long and piercing and agonised as to be scarcely
human, swelled from the room, and suddenly there followed a death-like
silence.

A light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed to the
window; and almost at the same instant the door gave way, and,
yielding to the pressure of the external applicants, they were nearly
precipitated into the room. It was empty. The window was open, and
Schalken sprang to a chair and gazed out upon the street and canal
below. He saw no form, but he beheld, or thought he beheld, the waters
of the broad canal beneath settling ring after ring in heavy circular
ripples, as if a moment before disturbed by the immersion of some large
and heavy mass.

No trace of Rose was ever after discovered, nor was anything certain
respecting her mysterious wooer detected or even suspected; no clue
whereby to trace the intricacies of the labyrinth and to arrive at a
distinct conclusion was to be found. But an incident occurred, which,
though it will not be received by our rational readers as at all
approaching to evidence upon the matter, nevertheless produced a strong
and a lasting impression upon the mind of Schalken.

Many years after the events which we have detailed, Schalken, then
remotely situated,