"I shall be very sorry to have mentioned it, if it has. Believe me, there's nothing in that to disturb you. When you ran in at tea-time I thought you looked scared. Close the shutters," he added, to the servant, who had appeared in answer to his ring. "And if you will pardon my leaving you alone, Miss Hereford, I will wish you good-night. I am very tired, and I have some writing to do yet." He shook hands with me and departed. Joseph bolted and barred the shutters, and I was left alone. But I went up to my room before ten o'clock. Would Mr. Chandos—or his ghost, as the servants had it—be out again that night in his somnambulant state? The subject had taken hold of my most vivid interest, and after undressing I undid the shutters and stood for a few minutes at the window in a warm wrapper, watching the grounds. Eyes and ears were alike strained, but to no purpose. No noise disturbed the house indoors, and all appeared still without. It might be too early yet for Mr. Chandos. But the silence told upon me. There was not a voice to be heard, not a sound to break the intense stillness. I began to feel nervous, hurried into bed, and went to sleep. Not to sleep for very long. I was awakened suddenly by a commotion in the gallery outside. A loud, angry cry; reproachful tones; all in the voice of Mrs. Chandos; they were followed by low, remonstrating words, as if somebody wished to soothe her. Were you ever aroused thus in the middle of the night in a strange, or comparatively strange, place? If so, you may divine what was my terror. I sat up in bed with parted lips, unable to hear anything distinctly for the violent beating of my heart; and then darted to the door, putting on my slippers and my large warm wrapper, before drawing it cautiously an inch open. It was not possible to make out anything at first in the dim gallery. Three dusky forms were there, having apparently come from the west wing, which I took to be those of Lady, Mr., and Mrs. Chandos. She, the latter, had her hair hanging down over a white wrapper; and Mr. Chandos, his arm about her waist, was drawing her to her own apartments. It was by that I knew him; who else would have presumed so to touch her?—his coat was off, his slippers were noiseless. The moonlight, coming in faintly on the gallery from above, made things tolerably clear, as my eyes got used to them. "You never would have told me," she sobbed, pushing back her hair with a petulant hand; "you know you never meant to tell me for ever so long. It is cruel—cruel! What am I here but a caged bird?" "Oh, Ethel! Ethel! you will betray us all!" cried Lady Chandos, in a voice of dire, reproachful tribulation. "To think that you should make this disturbance at night! Did you forget that a stranger was sleeping here?—that the servants may hear you in their rooms? You will bring desolation on the house."