When he entered the study, Mrs. Wharton seemed to be as unready with her words as himself; and when he shook hands with her, he observed that her hand was cold. She said she was well, however. Then came a pause during which the good pastor was shifting from one foot to the other, on the hearth-rug, with his hands behind him, though there was nothing in the grate but shavings. Mrs. Wharton, meantime, was putting her vail up and down, and her gloves on and off. At last, with a constrained and painful smile, she said that she was really ashamed to say what she came to say, but she must say it; and she believed and hoped that Mr. Gurney had known her long enough to be aware that she was not subject to foolish fancies and absurd fears. "No one further from it," he dropped, and now he fixed his eyes on her face. Her eyes fell under his, when she went on. "For some time past, I have suffered from a most frightful visitation in the night." "Visitation! What sort of visitation?" She turned visibly cold while she answered, "It was last Wednesday fortnight that I awoke in the middle of the night--that is between two and three in the morning, when it was getting quite light, and I saw--" She choked a little, and stopped. "Well!" said Mr. Gurney, "What did you see?" "I saw at the bottom of the bed, a most hideous--a most detestable face--gibbering, and making mouths at me." "A face!" "Yes; I could see only the face (except, indeed, a hand upon the bedpost), because it peeped round the bedpost from behind the curtain. The curtains are drawn down to the foot of the bed." She stole a look at Mr. Gurney. He was rolling his head; and there was a working about his mouth before he asked-- "What time did you sup that night?" "Now," she replied, "you are not going to say, I hope, that it was nightmare. Most people would; but I hoped that you knew me better than to suppose that I eat such suppers as would occasion nightmare, or that I should not know nightmare from reality." "But, my dear Mrs. Wharton, what else can I say?" "Perhaps you had better listen further, before you say any thing." He nodded and smiled, as much as to say that was true. "I have seen the same appearance on three occasions since." "Indeed!" "Yes, on three several nights, about the same hour. And, since the first appearance, my supper has been merely a little bread and butter, with a glass of water. I chose to exclude nightmare, as I would exclude any thing whatever that could possibly cause an appearance so horrible." "What sort of face is it?" "Short and broad;--silly, and yet sly; and the features gibber and work--Oh! fearfully!" "Do you hear it come and go?" "No. When I wake--(and I never used to wake in the night)--it is there: and it disappears--to say the truth--while my eyes are covered; for I can not meet its eyes. I hear nothing. When I venture a glance, sometimes it is still there; sometimes it is gone." "Have you missed any property?"