the rocks, looking back at us with his
wild eyes, and the blood streaming down his face--running and running
until he stumbled and fell? The sound of his running footsteps as he
clattered over the rocks have haunted me day and night ever since. I heard
them again to-night."

"I tell you again that he is dead. What! Do you think that you could hear
footsteps on a night like this?" The man stepped quickly across to the
nearest window and flung it open. The room was filled with rushing wind,
and the window curtains flapped noisily. "And where would he be running
to? Do you suppose he could climb up here from outside?"

"It might have been his spirit," murmured the other.

"Spirits don't cross the ocean, and their footsteps don't clatter,"
responded Thalassa coldly. "The house is all locked up, and there is no
other house near by. Come, what are you afraid of? You are worrying and
upsetting yourself over nothing. I'll bring you up your supper, and some
whisky with it. And the sooner you leave this cursed hole of a place, the
better it will be."

He crossed over to the fireplace and poked the coal into a red glow, and
then turned to leave the room. It was plain that his words had some effect
on Robert Turold, and he made an effort to restore his dignity before the
witness of his humiliation left him.

"No doubt you are right, Thalassa," he said in his usual tone. "My nerves
are a little overstrung, I fancy. You said the house was locked up for the
night, I think?"

"Everything bolted and barred," said Thalassa, and left the room.

He returned downstairs to the kitchen, where he wandered restlessly about,
occasionally pausing to look out of the window into the darkness of the
night. The rain had ceased, but the wind blew fiercely, and the sea
thundered at the foot of the cliffs. The gloom outside was thinning, and
as Thalassa glanced out his eye lighted on a strange shape among the
rocks. To his imagination it appeared to have something of the semblance
of a man's form standing motionless, watching the house.

Thalassa remained near the window staring out at the object. While he
stood thus, a faint sound reached him in the stillness. It was the muffled
yet insistent tap of somebody apparently anxious to attract attention
without making too much noise, and coming, as it seemed, from the front
door. Thalassa glanced at his wife, but she appeared to have heard
nothing, and her grey head was bent over her cards. He walke