For an instant Phil lost all consciousness of the room, of all circumstances, of even the heavy tread outside—it was as though his very spirit swooned; when he again became cognizant of his surroundings the murderer was peering through the open door; his eyes shone out of his ghastly face with a fierce, yet half affrighted, maniacal light. He strode across the room to the bed, and with angry gestures, he pulled the clothing hither and thither; at last he seemed to find that for which he sought, a small packet tied in oiled silk. He walked to a panel in the wall, directly opposite the foot of the bed; he grasped the hound’s head by the muzzle, and it looked as though the animal sprang to life; its eyes rolled wildly, it opened its jaws as though to devour the assailant, who tossed the packet into the wide-open mouth, which closed with a snap as though appeased by the sacrifice. The scene faded away; exhaustion held Phil a prisoner until far into the next day. He returned to a consciousness of his surroundings with a shiver of affright, but as he looked out at the sunlit fields, and smelled the fresh dewy atmosphere, he thought his vision of the past night but the illusions of a dream. “This close, stuffy room is quite enough to give one a nightmare,” he said, stretching his limbs; which felt sore and bruised; he also had a horrible sense of exhaustion. He walked into the garden, and bathed his face in the stream; there was such fresh life in the atmosphere that his soul filled with the elasticity of hope, and his spirits rose to exaltation; after all, what is energy but hope put to use? Yesterday his imagination lay dormant; to-day his purposed picture formed itself in his mind, in lineaments of beauty and glowing color. He ate his breakfast in healthy mood; he said to himself: “I’ll get out of this witch’s den to-day! I wouldn’t spend another night here—” a touch light as thistledown grazed his cheek; a breath from the unseen—a pressure on his shoulder, as of an invisible hand; he felt, without knowing the cause, that he could not go. He arose and went into the house: “I wonder!” though what he wondered he did not say. He took the sketch of the head he had drawn yesterday, and held it to the light, turning it from side to side. It was, line for line, the face of the murderer as he saw it in his vision; as he sat regarding the drawing thoughtfully, another phase of the vision—was it vision or dream? though the distinction between a vision and a dream might be a nice point for argument—but his mind dwelt with strange insistence upon the packet which he had seen put away. “If I find that parcel it will prove that it was a vision, and it will determine my next step; though why I should go prying around this old house I do not know. The sketch of the head and this illusion also, may both be the effect of that old woman’s story; but—but—it doesn’t tally. Well, here goes for the next move!” he said.