"Lady FitzAlmont and Gertrude passed to their rooms about an hour ago," says Dora. "But some of the men, I think, are still in the smoking-room."
"I did not think of them. I stole from my room, and roamed idly through the halls. Suddenly a great--I can not help thinking now a supernaturally strong--desire to go into the servants' corridor took possession of me. Without allowing myself an instant's hesitation, I turned in its direction, and walked on until I reached it."
She pauses here, and draws her breath rapidly.
"Go on," entreats Dora impatiently.
"The lamp was burning very dimly. The servants were all down-stairs--at their supper, I suppose--because there was no trace of them anywhere. Not a sound could be heard. The whole place looked melancholy and deserted, and filled me with a sense of awe I could not overcome. Still it attracted me. I lingered there, walking up and down until its very monotony wearied me; even then I was loath to leave it, and, turning into a small sitting-room, I stood staring idly around me. At last, somewhere in the distance I heard a clock strike ten, and, turning, I decided on going back once more to my room."
Again, emotion overcoming her, Florence pauses, and leans back in her chair.
"Well, but what is there in all this to terrify you so much?" demands her cousin, somewhat bewildered.
"Ah, give me time! Now I am coming to it," replies Florence quickly. "You know the large screen that stands in the corridor just outside the sitting-room I have mentioned--put there, I imagined to break the draught? Well, I had come out of the room and was standing half-hidden by this screen, when I saw something that paralyzed me with fear."
She rises to her feet and grows deadly pale as she says this, as though the sensation of fear she has been describing has come to her again.
"You saw--?" prompts Dora, rising too, and trembling violently, as though in expectation of some fatal tidings.
"I saw the door of the room that leads to the haunted chamber slowly move. It opened; the door that has been locked for nearly fifty years, and that has filled the breasts of all the servants here with terror and dismay, was cautiously thrown open! A scream rose to my lips, but I was either too terrified to give utterance to it, or else some strong determination to know what would follow restrained me, and I stood silent, like one turned into stone. I had instinctively moved back a step or two, and was now completely hidden from sight, though I could see all that was passing in the corridor through a hole in the framework of the screen. At last a figure came with hesitating footsteps from behind the door into the full glare of the flickering lamp. I could see him distinctly. It was--"