and followed her
guide to another, which was at the end of a passage, and approached by
some half-dozen crazy steps. This was prepared for her. The girl
lingered a little while to talk, and tell her grievances. She had not
a good place, she said; the wages were low, and the work was hard. She
was going to leave it in a fortnight; the child couldn't recommend her
to another, she supposed? Instead she was afraid another would be
difficult to get after living there, for the house had a very
indifferent character; there was far too much card-playing, and such
like. She was very much mistaken if some of the people who came there
oftenest were quite as honest as they might be, but she wouldn't have
it known that she had said so, for the world. Then there were some
rambling allusions to a rejected sweetheart, who had threatened to go a
soldiering--a final promise of knocking at the door early in the
morning--and 'Good night.'

The child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. She could
not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage down
stairs; and what the girl had said did not tend to reassure her. The
men were very ill-looking. They might get their living by robbing and
murdering travellers. Who could tell?

Reasoning herself out of these fears, or losing sight of them for a
little while, there came the anxiety to which the adventures of the
night gave rise. Here was the old passion awakened again in her
grandfather's breast, and to what further distraction it might tempt
him Heaven only knew. What fears their absence might have occasioned
already! Persons might be seeking for them even then. Would they be
forgiven in the morning, or turned adrift again! Oh! why had they
stopped in that strange place? It would have been better, under any
circumstances, to have gone on!

At last, sleep gradually stole upon her--a broken, fitful sleep,
troubled by dreams of falling from high towers, and waking with a start
and in great terror. A deeper slumber followed this--and then--What!
That figure in the room.

A figure was there. Yes, she had drawn up the blind to admit the light
when it should be dawn, and there, between the foot of the bed and the
dark casement, it crouched and slunk along, groping its way with
noiseless hands, and stealing round the bed. She had no voice to cry
for help, no power to move, but lay still, watching it.

On it came--on, silently and stealthily, to the b