stopped and compelled to
attend the unknown lady.

As Capitola pursued the path that wound lower and lower into the dark
valley the gloom of the thicket deepened. Her thoughts ran on all the
horrible traditions connected with the Hidden House and Hollow--the
murder and robbery of the poor peddler--the mysterious assassination of
Eugene Le Noir; the sudden disappearance of his youthful widow; the
strange sights and sounds reported to be heard and seen about the
mansion; the spectral light at the upper gable window; the white form
seen flitting through the chamber; the pale lady that in the dead of
night drew the curtains of a guest that once had slept there; and above
all Capitola thought of the beautiful, strange girl, who was now an
inmate of that sinful and accursed house! And while these thoughts
absorbed her mind, suddenly, in a turning of the path, she came full
upon the gloomy building.

CHAPTER V.

THE HIDDEN HOUSE.

The very stains and fractures on the wall
Assuming features solemn and terrific,
Hinted some tragedy of that old hall
Locked up in hieroglyphic!
Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread;
But to one gloomy window pointing mostly,
The while some secret inspiration said,
That chamber is the ghostly!

--Hood.

The Hidden House was a large, irregular edifice of dark red sandstone
with its walls covered closely with the clinging ivy, that had been
clipped away only from a few of the doors and windows, and its roof
over-shadowed by the top branches of gigantic oaks and elms that
clustered around and nearly concealed the building.

It might have been a long-forsaken house, for any sign of human
habitation that was to be seen about it. All was silent, solitary and
gloomy.

As Capitola drew up her horse to gaze upon its somber walls she
wondered which was the window at which the spectral light and ghostly
face had been seen. She soon believed that she had found it.

At the highest point of the building, immediately under the sharp angle
of the roof, in the gable and nearest to view, was a solitary window.
The ivy that clung tightly to the stone, covering every portion of the
wall at this end, was clipped away from that high placed, dark and
lonely window by which Capitola's eyes were strangely fascinated.

While thus she gazed in wonder, interest and curiosity, though without
the least degree of superstitious dread, a visi