ular breathing, as of sleepers, together with
an occasional sigh, as of some one in a troubled dream. They were all
asleep, then! Who? The Carlists, or the women attendants? or was it
not rather his own friends--and--Katie? At this thought an
uncontrollable desire seized him to venture down and see for himself.
He might get near enough to see for himself. He could strike a match,
take one look, and then, if mistaken, retreat. Dared he venture? He
dared.

He raised himself, and then was about to put one foot down so as to
descend, but at that very moment, as he stood poised in that
attitude, he heard a faint shuffling sound below. He stopped and
looked down cautiously. There, across the moonbeams, he could see a
figure moving; the very same figure that he had seen moving across
the moonbeams in his own room--the same slender, slight, fragile
figure, with the same floating, vaporous drapery. But now he did not
feel one particle of wonder or superstitious awe. He understood it
all. The woman who had visited him had fled back here, and was now
about to return. What should he do? He must retreat. She was
evidently coming in his direction. He would go back to his own room,
and wait and watch and intercept her. As Harry hesitated the woman
stopped also, and listened. Then she advanced again.

Upon this Harry retreated, taking his boots and the extinguished
torch, and went back again. He succeeded in regaining his own room
without making any noise, and by that time he had decided on what he
ought to do. He decided to stand in the fireplace, on the opposite
side. The woman would come down the stepping-stones and steal into
the room: he would Watch her and find out what she wanted. Then he
would act according to the issue of events; and at any rate he could
intercept her on her return, and make her give an account of herself.

Having come to this conclusion, Harry stood there in the chimney,
waiting most patiently for what seemed a very long time. He suspected
that the woman might still be hesitating, but determined to wait
until she should make her appearance. At length he heard a noise,
which seemed to come from the passage above. It was a soft, dull,
scraping, sliding noise of a very peculiar kind, the cause and the
nature of which he could not conjecture. The sound came, and then
stopped, and came again, and again stopped, for three or four times.
Harry listened and waited. At last the sound ceased altogether, and
there w