affect my Lady of the Shroud, or even my opinion of her. I even began to
dread Aunt Janet's Second-Sight visions or dreams. These had a fatal
habit of coming so near to fact that they always made for a danger of
discovery. I had to realize now that the Lady of the Shroud might indeed
be a Vampire--one of that horrid race that survives death and carries on
a life-in-death existence eternally and only for evil. Indeed, I began
to _expect_ that Aunt Janet would ere long have some prophetic insight to
the matter. She had been so wonderfully correct in her prophetic
surmises with regard to both the visits to my room that it was hardly
possible that she could fail to take cognizance of this last development.

But my dread was not justified; at any rate, I had no reason to suspect
that by any force or exercise of her occult gift she might cause me
concern by the discovery of my secret. Only once did I feel that actual
danger in that respect was close to me. That was when she came early one
morning and rapped at my door. When I called out, "Who is that? What is
it?" she said in an agitated way:

"Thank God, laddie, you are all right! Go to sleep again."

Later on, when we met at breakfast, she explained that she had had a
nightmare in the grey of the morning. She thought she had seen me in the
crypt of a great church close beside a stone coffin; and, knowing that
such was an ominous subject to dream about, came as soon as she dared to
see if I was all right. Her mind was evidently set on death and burial,
for she went on:

"By the way, Rupert, I am told that the great church on time top of the
cliff across the creek is St. Sava's, where the great people of the
country used to be buried. I want you to take me there some day. We
shall go over it, and look at the tombs and monuments together. I really
think I should be afraid to go alone, but it will be all right if you are
with me." This was getting really dangerous, so I turned it aside:

"Really, Aunt Janet, I'm afraid it won't do. If you go off to weird old
churches, and fill yourself up with a fresh supply of horrors, I don't
know what will happen. You'll be dreaming dreadful things about me every
night and neither you nor I shall get any sleep." It went to my heart to
oppose her in any wish; and also this kind of chaffy opposition might
pain her. But I had no alternative; the matter was too serious to be
allowed to proceed. Should Aunt Janet go to th