and remembering that I had missed my evening smoke I
lighted my pipe, silently opened the front door and stepped out upon the
porch to get a whiff of fresh air. It was a still dark night, and I
tiptoed down to the end that overlooked the city and stood looking at
the lights and listening to the music of the switch engines in the yards
below the hill. The porch was in darkness except the broad beam of
light from the hall gas jet through the open door.

The lights below made me think of home and my wife and little ones
sleeping safely, I hoped, close to the coastwise lights of the Old
Colony.

I thought I heard a stealthy footfall behind me, and turned around to
face an apparition that made the cold chill creep up my back. If ever
there was a ghost, this must be one, an object in white not six feet
from me.

I'm not at all afraid of ghosts when I reach my second wind, and I
grabbed at this one. It moved backward silently and as I made a quick
step toward it that specter let out the most blood-curdling yell I ever
heard--the shriek of a maniac.

I stepped quicker now, but it moved away until it stood in the flood of
light from the doorway, and then I saw a sight that took all the
strength out of me. The most awful and frightful face I ever beheld,
and,--it was the face of Madeline Hopkins.

The neck and jaw and mouth were drawn and seamed and scarred in a
frightful and hideous manner, the teeth protruded and the mouth was
drawn to one side in a frightful leer; above that was all the beauty of
"My Lady of the Eyes."

For a moment I was dumb and powerless, and in that moment Hopkins
appeared with a bound, and between us we captured my poor friend's wife
and struggled and fought with her up the long stairs and back to her
bed.

Sitting one on either side, we had all we could do to hold her hands.
She would lift us both to our feet, she was struggling desperately, and
the eyes were the eyes of a tigress.

When this strain was at its worst and every nerve on edge, another
scream from behind us cut our ears like a needle, the eyes of the
tigress as well as ours sought the door, and there in her golden curls
and white "nightie" stood little Madeline. The eyes of the tigress
softened to tenderest love, and with a bound, the baby was on her
mother's breast, her arms around her neck, and she was saying, "Poor
Mama, what they doin' to poor Mama?"

"My darling, my darling," said the mother in the sweetest of tones.

I un