“AT MIDNIGHT.” The household retired to rest early, at Marchant’s Hold, and Ismay was in her bed and asleep by ten o’clock, but with a purpose in her mind that made her wake to the minute as the clock rang two. She had left her blinds up, and as she sat up in her bed she saw the moonlight lying on the carpet. The rain was over. “That is lucky, I sha’n’t need much light,” she thought composedly, as she got up and put on a warm, dark dressing-gown, and woolen slippers that would make no sound. She must investigate that room up-stairs, and her only chance was at night, when her mother and Cristiane were safe. “Besides,” she reminded herself quite gaily, “I shall have to use it at night, when I need it; and I may as well get used to it. It is at night that mother and Marcus Wray will make their plans, at night that they will carry them out. And at night I always lock my door! I’m very nervous--in the dark!” she laughed noiselessly. “I must impress that on my parent.” But it was without a tremor that she slipped out into the silent house and up the stairs, where there were no windows and the darkness was inky. There was no sound of music to-night to guide her as she stood at last in the black hall, where a dozen shut doors kept the darkness inviolate. She felt in her pocket for her end of candle and matches. They were there, but she dared not strike a light here in the corridor. One hand held at arm’s length before her, she moved on cautiously, till she felt a door. The handle turned under her fingers, and she went in without a sound; without a sound the door closed behind her, though for all she knew she stood alone at night, in the room where Thomas had been terror-stricken in daylight. With steady fingers she lit the candle, and stared round her as it burned dimly. The room was chilly and close, but it was not the room she wanted, only an unused bedroom, a little dusty. She pinched out her candle and went into the hall again. “What a fool I am not to remember!” she thought angrily; “it’s cold up here, and no fun.” She tried three more rooms in succession; all had no sign in them of any musical instrument, nor ghostly habitation. Could she be in the wrong hall? She opened the next door in doubtful irritation, but her hand stopped with a jerk as she lifted it to strike a match. Opposite her the moonlight poured through a wide, low window, till the room seemed light as day after the dark hall, and in the very full flood of the moonlight stood the little spinet on its high, thin legs, its narrow ivory keyboard shining dustily in the moon-rays. An inexplicable terror that she was not alone clutched at the girl’s bold heart. Thomas was right, there was something queer about this room! Without turning, Ismay stretched out her arm backward, to shut the door. But it was fast already; noiselessly it had swung back on its hinges, without even a click of the latch.