A loud knock, which shook the door, made the Professor start up amazed, and the shadows re-begin their uncanny pantomime. For a moment he stood stupefied with surprise. It was far in the small hours of the night, and visitors at any time were unknown. He had lived there for months an utter stranger, and no footsteps but his own had ever crossed the floor. An uncontrollable fit of trembling came upon him, and he lay down once more, thinking it all the creation of his overwrought fancy. But the knock was repeated louder than before, and the gaunt shadows again made violent signals to each other in their speechless dialect, as though their grim desires were just then upon the eve of accomplishment. With an effort the Professor got up and said “Come!” but the word died away in his throat, a faint whisper. He tried it a second time; then, partially overruling the weakness that had seized upon him, crossed the room and opened the door. “Good gracious! What’s the matter with you?” said a voice from out of the dark on the landing. It was the son of the undertaker, who lived down stairs. They were not acquainted, and had never spoken, but they had often passed each other in the street—though, until that moment, the Professor was not aware that he had ever even noticed him; but now he recognized him and drew back. The young man, however, entered uninvited. “I say, what the deuce is the matter with you?” “Nothing! What do you want, sir?” “Want? Why your face is as white as a sheet, and your eyes, your eyes are—confound me if I want any thing!” he said, backing to the door in alarm. Indeed, the expression which rested on the features of the Professor was hardly pleasant to look at alone, and in the night. But, having followed his instinct, so far as to his bodily preservation, and having backed into the hall so that the Professor could hardly distinguish the outline of his figure, the young man’s courage got the better of his fright. He came to a standstill, passed his hand nervously round his neck, cleared his throat several times, and then, in a husky voice—caused, evidently, by his recent alarm, and not by the message, singular as it was, that he came to deliver—said,— “We want you. It is Christmas—we want you for a corpse.”