Christmas drew on. Mrs. Dundyke, alone now, for Mr. Carr had gone back to Holland, was seated one afternoon by her drawing-room fire, in the twilight, musing very sadly on the past. The servants were at tea in the kitchen, and one of them had just been up to ask her mistress if she would take a cup, as she sometimes did before her late dinner, and had gone down again, leaving unintentionally the room door unlatched. As the girl entered the kitchen, the sound of laughter and merriment came forth to the ears of Mrs. Dundyke. It quite jarred upon her heart. How often has it occurred to us, bending under the weight of some secret trouble that goes well-nigh to break us, to envy our unconscious servants, who seem to have no care! The kitchen door closed again, and silence supervened--a silence that soon began to make itself felt, as it will in these moments of gloom. Mrs. Dundyke was aroused from it in a remarkable manner; not violently or loudly, but still in so strange a way, that her mouth opened in consternation as she listened, and she rose noiselessly from her chair in a sort of horror. _She had distinctly heard the latch-key put into the street-door lock_; just as she had heard it many a time when her husband used to come home from business in the year last gone by. She heard it turned in the lock, the peculiar click it used to give, and she heard the door quietly open and then close again, as if some one had entered. Not since they went abroad the previous July had she heard those sounds, or had the door thus been opened. There had been but that one latch-key to the door, and Mr. Dundyke, either by chance or intention, had carried it away with him in his pocket. It had been in his pocket during the whole period of their travels, and been lost with him. What could it mean? Who had come in? Footsteps, slow, hesitating footsteps were crossing the hall; they seemed to halt at the dining-room, and were now ascending the stairs. Mrs. Dundyke was by far too practical a woman to believe in ghosts, but that anything but the ghost of her husband could open the door with that latch-key and be stealing up, was hard to believe. "Betsey!" If ever she felt a wish to sink into the wall, or through the floor, she felt it then. The voice which had called out the familiar home name, was her husband's voice; his, and yet not his. His, in a manner; but querulous, worn, weakened. She stood in horror, utterly bewildered, not daring to move, her arms clasping a chair for protection, she knew not from what, her eyes strained on the unlatched door. That it could be her husband returned in life, her thoughts never so much as glanced at.