"With a few more delicate insinuations, made, as he candidly confessed, in the fervent hope of frightening me still more, on the stroke of midnight my friend conducted me to my quarters. 'You will have it all to yourself,' he said, as we traversed a tremendously long and gloomy corridor that connected the two wings of the house, 'for all the rooms on this side are at present unoccupied, and those immediately next to yours haven't been slept in for years--there is something about them that doesn't appeal to my guests. What it is I can't say--I leave that to you. Here we are!' and, as he spoke, he threw open a door. A current of icy cold air slammed it to and blew out my light, and as I groped for the door-handle, I heard my host's footsteps retreating hurriedly down the corridor, whilst he wished me a rather nervous good-night. "Relighting my candle and shutting the window--Achrow is one of those open-air fiends who never had a bronchial cold in his life, and expects everyone else to be equally immune--I found myself in a room that was well calculated to strike even the most hardened ghost-hunter with awe. "It was coffin-shaped, large, narrow, and lofty; and floor, panelling, and furniture were of the blackest oak. "The bedstead, a four-poster of the most funereal type, stood near the fireplace, from which a couple of thick pine logs sent out a ruddy glare; and directly opposite the foot of the bed, with its back to the wall, stood an ebony chair, which, although in a position that should have necessitated its receiving a generous share of the fire's rays, was nevertheless shrouded in such darkness that I could only discern its front legs--a phenomenon that did not strike me as being peculiar till afterwards. "Between the chair and the ingle, was a bay window overlooking one angle of the lawn, a side path connecting the back premises of the house with the drive, and a dense growth of evergreens, poplars, limes, and copper beeches, the branches of which were now weighed down beneath layer upon layer of snow. "The room, as I have stated, was long, but I did not realise how long until I was in the act of getting into bed, when my eyes struggled in vain to reach the remote corners of the chamber and the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling, which were fast presenting the startling appearance of being overhung with an impenetrable pall, such a pall as forms the gloomy coverlet of a hearse; the similarity being increased by waving plume-like shadows that suddenly appeared--from God knows where!--on the floor and wall. "That the room was genuinely haunted I had not now the slightest doubt, for the atmosphere was charged to the very utmost with superphysical impressions--the impressions of a monstrous hearse, with all the sickly paraphernalia of black flowing drapery and scented pine wood.