With her hands pressing upon her heart to still its wild tumultuous beating, she passed the door; now the flight of stairs leading to the house was gained in safety. She laid her trembling hands upon the banisters, and at that moment it was that Gray heard the creaking sound that alarmed him in the midst of his wicked rejoicing over the treachery he meditated. Ada turned slowly round, and faced the door. To fly she knew would tempt pursuit; and without, in her confusion, being able to reflect further than that, the best plan would be to face Jacob Gray should he come from the room, Ada stood for several minutes enduring the most torturing and agonising suspense. All remained still; Gray did not appear, and once more Ada turned to descend the staircase; one step she had taken downwards, when a loose nail from the crazy banisters fell into the passage below, making, in the solemn silence that reigned in the house, an alarming noise. Ada paused. “Now, now,” she thought, “I shall need all my firmness. Heaven help me now!” The door of Gray’s room opened, and he stood in the entrance with a pale and anxious face: Ada turned as before, and met his gaze. It would have been difficult that moment to have decided which face bore the palest hue—the beautiful and innocent one of Ada, contrasted as it was with, her long jetty ringlets, to the disturbed, haggard countenance of the man of crimes and blood. “There—there was—a noise!” said Gray. “I heard it,” replied Ada. “W—where was it?” “Above.” “’Twas nothing, Ada—nothing—I suppose quite accidental, Ada; you are going down—I—I’ll follow you—I’ll follow you.” He closed the door behind him with a trembling hand, and made a step towards the staircase. “Jacob Gray,” cried Ada, “stop.” He paused, for there was an awful earnestness in her manner that greatly added to his alarm. Yet Ada knew not what to do or how to act. The words she uttered were almost involuntary. Then it might be that Heaven whispered to her mind a course of action; but it came across her mind that Gray might be alarmed still more, knowing the lurking superstition of his character, and she suddenly said,— “Did you not tell me once this house was haunted?” “Haunted!” echoed Gray, suddenly descending several stairs, and showing by his rapid changes of colour the craven fear that was at his heart’s inmost core. His fears, however, had prompted him to the very course which Ada so much dreaded, namely, to descend to the lower part of the house, and on the impulse of the moment she laid her hand on Jacob Gray’s arm, and said,— “I was following it—it has gone down!” “It!—Who?—What?” cried Gray, as he sprung back again to the door of his room in an instant, trembling exceedingly.