ed about two o'clock in the
morning? They woke me. Very frightful!"

"The moon was at her full. Dogs will bay at the moon."

I felt relieved to think that I should not find Strahan in the
breakfast-room; and hastening through the ceremony of a meal which I
scarcely touched, I went out into the park unobserved, and creeping
round the copses and into the neglected gardens, made my way to the
pavilion. I mounted the stairs; I looked on the floor of the upper room;
yes, there still was the black figure of the pentacle, the circle. So,
then, it was not a dream! Till then I had doubted. Or might it not still
be so far a dream that I had walked in my sleep, and with an imagination
preoccupied by my conversations with Margrave,--by the hieroglyphics
on the staff I had handled, by the very figure associated with
superstitious practices which I had copied from some weird book at
his request, by all the strange impressions previously stamped on my
mind,--might I not, in truth, have carried thither in sleep the staff,
described the circle, and all the rest been but visionary delusion?
Surely, surely, so common-sense, and so Julius Faber would interpret the
riddles that perplexed me! Be that as it may, my first thought was to
efface the marks on the floor. I found this easier than I had ventured
to hope. I rubbed the circle and the pentacle away from the boards with
the sole of my foot, leaving but an undistinguishable smudge behind. I
know not why, but I felt the more nervously anxious to remove all such
evidences of my nocturnal visit to that room, because Margrave had so
openly gone thither to seek for the staff, and had so rudely named me to
the servant as having meddled with it. Might he not awake some suspicion
against me? Suspicion, what of? I knew not, but I feared!

The healthful air of day gradually nerved my spirits and relieved my
thoughts. But the place had become hateful to me. I resolved not to wait
for Strahan's return, but to walk back to L----, and leave a message for
my host. It was sufficient excuse that I could not longer absent myself
from my patients; accordingly I gave directions to have the few things
which I had brought with me sent to my house by any servant who might
be going to L----, and was soon pleased to find myself outside the
park-gates and on the high-road.

I had not gone a mile before I met Strahan on horseback. He received
my apologies for not waiting his return to bid him farewell without