Now I must go back a little.—When Mrs. Elton reached the room, she found it darkened, and the gentlemen seated at the table. A running fire of knocks was going on all around. She sat down in a corner. In a minute or two, she fancied she saw strange figures moving about, generally near the floor, and very imperfectly developed. Sometimes only a hand, sometimes only a foot, shadowed itself out of the dim obscurity. She tried to persuade herself that it was all done, somehow or other, by Funkelstein, yet she could not help watching with a curious dread. She was not a very excitable woman, and her nerves were safe enough. In a minute or two more, the table at which they were seated, began to move up and down with a kind of vertical oscillation, and several things in the room began to slide about, by short, apparently purposeless jerks. Everything threatened to assume motion, and turn the library into a domestic chaos. Mrs. Elton declared afterwards that several books were thrown about the room.—But suddenly everything was as still as the moonlight. Every chair and table was at rest, looking perfectly incapable of motion. Mrs. Elton felt that she dared not say they had moved at all, so utterly ordinary was their appearance. Not a sound was to be heard from corner or ceiling. After a moment’s silence, Mrs. Elton was quite restored to her sound mind, as she said, and left the room. “Some adverse influence is at work,” said Funkelstein, with some vexation. “What is in that closet?” So saying he approached the door of the private staircase, and opened it. They saw him start aside, and a veiled dark figure pass him, cross the library, and go out by another door. “I have my suspicions,” said Funkelstein, with a rather tremulous voice. “And your fears too, I think. Grant it now,” said Mr. Arnold. “Granted, Mr. Arnold. Let us go to the drawing-room.” Just as Margaret had reached the library door at the bottom of the private stair, either a puff of wind from an open loophole window, or some other cause, destroyed the arrangement of the veil, and made it fall quite over her face, She stopped for a moment to readjust it. She had not quite succeeded, when Funkelstein opened the door. Without an instant’s hesitation, she let the veil fall, and walked forward. Mrs. Elton had gone to her own room, on her way to Lady Emily’s. When she reached the latter, she found Margaret seated as she had left her, by the bedside. Lady Emily said: “I did not miss you, Margaret, half so much as I expected. But, indeed, you were not many moments gone. I do not care for that man now. He can’t hurt me, can he?”