of a corresponding passage, which opened from the same lobby at
the opposite side As I hurried along I distinctly heard the same sounds.
The light of dawn had not yet appeared, but there was a strong moonlight
shining through the windows. I thought the morning could hardly be so far
advanced as we had at first supposed; but still, strangely as it now
seems to me, suspecting nothing amiss, I walked on in noiseless,
slippered feet, to the nursery-door. It stood half open; some one had
unquestionably visited it since we had been there. I stepped forward, and
entered. At the threshold horror arrested my advance.

The coffin was placed upon tressles at the further extremity of the
chamber, with the foot of it nearly towards the door, and a large window
at the side of it admitted the cold lustre of the moon full upon the
apparatus of mortality, and the objects immediately about it.

At the foot of the coffin stood the ungainly form of our lodger. He
seemed to be intently watching the face of the corpse, and was stooped a
little, while with his hands he tapped sharply, from time to time at the
sides of the coffin, like one who designs to awaken a slumberer. Perched
upon the body of the child, and nuzzling among the grave-clothes, with a
strange kind of ecstasy, was the detested brute, the cat I have so often
mentioned.

The group thus revealed, I looked upon but for one instant; in the next I
shouted, in absolute terror--

"In God's name! what are you doing?"

Our lodger shuffled away abruptly, as if disconcerted; but the
ill-favoured cat, whisking round, stood like a demon sentinel upon the
corpse, growling and hissing, with arched back and glaring eyes.

The lodger, turning abruptly toward me, motioned me to one side.
Mechanically I obeyed his gesture, and he hurried hastily from the room.

Sick and dizzy, I returned to my own chamber. I confess I had not nerve
to combat the infernal brute, which still held possession of the room,
and so I left it undisturbed.

This incident I did not tell to my wife until some time afterwards; and I
mention it here because it was, and is, in my mind associated with a
painful circumstance which very soon afterwards came to light.

That morning I witnessed the burial of my darling child. Sore and
desolate was my heart; but with infinite gratitude to the great
controller of all events, I recognised in it a change which nothing but
the spirit of all good can effect. The love and fear o