"Yes, it's the eve of St. Martin," assented the servant, paying no attention to the other remark, and not in the least understanding it. The domestic proved correct in his surmises. At five o'clock, when the bell rang for table-d'hôte, Mrs. Carleton St. John entered the dining-room. Very few were present; all gentlemen, except herself, and mostly pensionnaires; the hotels on the coast are empty at that season. The dinner was excellent, but it did not last long; and the gentlemen, one by one, folded their large serviettes, and quitted the room. She was seated facing the mantelpiece, its clock in front of her. The hands were approaching six--the very hour when, twelve months before, while she sat in her dining-room at Alnwick, Benja was on fire with none near to rescue him. Nervousness tells in various ways upon the human frame, and it seemed to Mrs. St. John that the striking of the hour would be her own knell. Every symptom of one of those frightful paroxysms was stealing over her, and she dreaded it with an awful dread. As long as the rest of the dinner-guests were present, endurance was possible, though her brain had throbbed, her hands had trembled. But they were gone, those gentlemen. They had gazed on her beauty as she sat before them, and wondered that one so young could be so wan and careworn. A choking sensation oppressed her; her throat seemed to swell with it; and that sure minute-hand grew nearer and nearer. Invalids have strange fancies; and this poor woman was an invalid both in body and mind. The agitation increased. She glanced round the large space of the darkened room--for the waiter, as was his custom, had put out the side-lamps now that dinner was over--almost believing that she should see Benja. The hands were all-but pointing to the hour; the silence was growing horrible, and she suddenly addressed an observation to the waiter at the sideboard behind her; anything to break it. There was no answer. Mrs. Carleton St. John turned sharply round, and became aware that the man had gone out; that she was alone in that dreary room. Alone! The nervous climax had come; and with a cry of horror, she flew out at the door, and up the broad lighted staircase. What is it that comes over us in these moments of superstitious fear? Surely we have all experienced this sensation: ay, even we who pride ourselves upon our clear consciences--the dread of looking behind us. Yet look we must, and do. The unhappy lady had only taken a few steps up the stairs, when she turned her head in the impulse of desperation, and there--_there_--at the foot of the stairs, as if he had but stepped in through the open doors of the courtyard, stood the indistinct form of a boy, bearing a lighted church; the very facsimile of the one that other boy had borne on his birthday night, while a dull, wild, unearthly sound, apparently proceeding from him, smote upon her ear.