The figure of Mrs. Marley had advanced from behind the broken bedstead, whose high headboard offered an effective shield to the movements of any object behind it, had moved forward across the room, and retreated in the direction from whence it came. Seizing the lantern, Mr. Callister swept its light underneath the bed. The dust that everywhere filled the room was there plentiful enough, but that was all. There were no signs of its having been recently disturbed--it lay in one unbroken sheet upon the floor. At that instant a terrific gust of wind swept the rain fiercely against the panes. And amid its moaning of the oaks without, and the rattling of the rain upon the glass, a low, mocking laugh was heard, seemingly from the floor itself, which sent a chill to the very marrow of his bones. "This thing must be investigated," muttered the man, striding toward the fire-place. "Either that woman lives, or--but, pshaw! Don't I know she is dead? I saw her killed with my own eyes. I know that at this very moment her body lies waiting identification in the Morgue. There is some infernal trickery in all this; what it means I must know and will." Setting down the lantern by the side of the hearth-stone, he seized the shoulder of the unconscious man and shook it with all the violence he could exert. "Rube, Rube!" he cried, "what ails you, man? For Heaven's sake, stop this nonsense and try to be something like yourself!" Slowly the eyes opened and Reuben Tisdale, raising himself to a sitting posture, looked wildly around. "Lije, did you see her, or was it only meant for me?" "See her! Of course I saw her. There's some infernal jugglery going on in this house, and I propose to find out what it is." The man shook his head. "No, no. It was Maria's spirit," he muttered. "I killed her and she haunts me, and no wonder, in this evil room." "Well, and what's the matter with this room?" "Can you ask?" said the man, shudderingly, rising with difficulty to his feet. "After the crime committed here on this very bed, can you ask why this room should be evil to me?" "I don't see what that has to do with it. If that is your mode of reasoning it ought to be the ghost of old man Mansfield, not of your wife, that should appear to you here." Again the man shuddered, glancing at the same time nervously about him. "I don't know what came over me," he muttered. "I believe I must have fainted for the first time since I was a boy. Lije, for heaven's sake let's get out of this. I shall be of no more use to you in this house to-night." "I shall do nothing of the sort," replied the stock-broker, decidedly. "I shan't leave the house until I've searched it from garret to cellar and found out what this thing means. If it were not that I know that she is closely confined I might almost think----"