He laughed, as she paused, out of breath at the volubility with which she had spoken. I waited not to hear more, but softly stole up to my room. I feared neither darkness nor solitude; besides the moon had risen, and her pale, mild light fell on the floor. So I sat down by my bed, laid my head on the pillow, and, as I thus faced the window, I looked at the open sky beyond it, and watched a whole flock of soft white clouds slowly journeying towards the west. I thought to remain thus until I should hear the well-known tramp of my father's horse coming down the stony road, but unconsciously my eyes closed and I fell fast asleep. How long I slept I cannot tell. I know that I had a fearful dream, which I have never been able to remember, and that I woke with the cold dews on my brow and an awful dread at my heart. I looked up trembling with terror; a large dark cloud was passing over the moon; in my room there was the gloom of midnight, but not its silence. Unusual tumult filled our quiet home; I listened and heard the voices of strange men, and above them that of Sarah, rising loud in lamentation, and exclaiming, "Oh! my poor master!" My next remembrance is, that standing on the steps of the staircase, I looked down at something passing below; that a sharp current of cold air came from the open front door, beyond which I caught sight of a starry sky; that on the threshold of the parlour stood, with their backs to me, three men in coarse jackets; and that, looking beyond them in the room, I saw Sarah weeping bitterly, and holding a flickering light, whilst Cornelius O'Reilly bent over my father, who sat in his chair motionless and deadly pale. He said something; Cornelius looked at Sarah; she laid down the light, came out, shut the door, and all vanished like a vision lost in sudden obscurity. And a vision I might have thought it, but for the subdued speech that followed. Sarah was sobbing in the dark passage. "Come, girl, don't take on so," said a man's voice, speaking low, "where's the use? Any one can see it is all over with the poor doctor." "Oh! don't," incoherently exclaimed Sarah, "don't." "He said so himself, and he ought to know. 'It is all over with me, Dick,' says he, when we picked him up from where that cursed horse had thrown him; 'take me home to die,' says he, 'take me home to die.'" Sarah moaned; the other two men said nothing; had they but uttered a word, I should have remembered it, for I still seem to hear distinctly, as if but just fallen from the lips of the speaker, not merely the words, but the very intonations of that voice to which, standing on the dark staircase, I then listened in all the stupor of grief. Scarcely had it ceased, when the parlour door opened; Cornelius, looking very sad and pale, appeared on the threshold, and, raising his voice, called out, "Margaret!"