About the middle of November Aunt Featherstone noticed that I was beginning to look very pale, to lose my appetite, and to start and tremble at the most commonplace sounds. The truth was that the long nights of terror which passed over my head, in my pretty sleeping-room off the ghost's corridor, were wearing out my health and spirits, and threatening to throw me into a fever; and yet neither sight nor sound of the supernatural had ever disturbed my rest--none worth recording, that is; for of course, in my paroxysms of wakeful fear, I fancied a thousand horrible revelations. Night after night I lay in agony, with my ears distended for the sound of the footstep. Morning after morning I awakened, weary and jaded, after a short, unsatisfying sleep, and resolved that I would confess to my aunt, and implore her to fly from the place at once. But, when seated at the breakfast-table, my heart invariably failed me. I accounted, by the mention of a headache, for my pale cheeks, and kept my secret. Some weeks passed, and then I in my turn began to observe that Aunt Featherstone had grown exceedingly dull in spirits. "Can any one have told her the secret of the House?" was the question I quickly asked myself. But the servants denied having broken their promise; and I had reason to think that there had been of late much less gossip on the subject than formerly. I was afraid to risk questioning the dear old lady, and so I could only hope and surmise. But I was dull, and Aunt Featherstone was dull, and the Thatched House was dreary. Things went on in this way for some time, and at last a dreadful night arrived. I had been for a long walk during the day; and had gone to bed rather earlier than usual, and fallen asleep quickly. For about two hours I slept, and then I was roused suddenly by a slight sound, like the creaking of a board, just outside my door. With the instinct of fear I started up, and listened intently. A watery moon was shining into my room, revealing the pretty blue-and-white furniture, the pale statuette and the various little dainty ornaments with which I had been pleased to surround myself in this my chosen sanctuary. I sat up shuddering and listened. I pressed my hands tightly over my heart, to try and keep its throbbing from killing me; for distinctly, in the merciless stillness of the winter night, I heard the tread of a stealthy footstep on the passage outside my room. Along the corridor it crept, down the staircase it went, and was lost in the hall below. I shall never forget the anguish of fear in which I passed the remainder of that wretched night. While cowering into my pillow, I made up my mind to leave the Thatched House as soon as the morning broke, and never to enter it again. I had heard people whose hair had grown gray a single night, of grief or terror. When I glanced in the looking-glass at dawn, I almost expected to see a white head upon my own shoulders.