‘Listen to what I am going to tell you,’ she began. ‘You are not a little boy now; you ought to know all. I had a friend, a girl.... She married a man she loved with all her heart, and she was very happy with her husband. During the first year of their married life they went together to the capital to spend a few weeks there and enjoy themselves. They stayed at a good hotel, and went out a great deal to theatres and parties. My friend was very pretty--every one noticed her, young men paid her attentions,--but there was among them one ... an officer. He followed her about incessantly, and wherever she was, she always saw his cruel black eyes. He was not introduced to her, and never once spoke to her--only perpetually stared at her--so insolently and strangely. All the pleasures of the capital were poisoned by his presence. She began persuading her husband to hasten their departure--and they had already made all the preparations for the journey. One evening her husband went out to a club--he had been invited by the officers of the same regiment as that officer--to play cards.... She was for the very first time left alone. Her husband did not return for a long while. She dismissed her maid, and went to bed.... And suddenly she felt overcome by terror, so that she was quite cold and shivering. She fancied she heard a slight sound on the other side of the wall, like a dog scratching, and she began watching the wall. In the corner a lamp was burning; the room was all hung with tapestry.... Suddenly something stirred there, rose, opened.... And straight out of the wall a black, long figure came, that awful man with the cruel eyes! She tried to scream, but could not. She was utterly numb with terror. He went up to her rapidly, like some beast of prey, flung something on her head, something strong-smelling, heavy, white.... What happened then I don’t remember I ... don’t remember! It was like death, like a murder.... When at last that fearful darkness began to pass away--when I ... when my friend came to herself, there was no one in the room. Again, and for a long time, she had not the strength to scream, she screamed at last ... then again everything was confusion.... Then she saw her husband by her side: he had been kept at the club till two o’clock at night.... He looked scared and white. He began questioning her, but she told him nothing.... Then she swooned away again. I remember though when she was left alone in the room, she examined the place in the wall.... Under the tapestry hangings it turned out there was a secret door. And her betrothal ring had gone from off her hand. This ring was of an unusual pattern; seven little gold stars alternated on it with seven silver stars; it was an old family heirloom. Her husband asked her what had become of the ring; she could give him no answer. Her husband supposed she had dropped it somewhere, searched everywhere, but could not find it. He felt uneasy