“Oh, sir, I’m so thankful you’ve come back! Dawson has been looking for you for the last hour, for poor missus is so ill, and we don’t know what on earth to do with her.” “Ill! In what way?” I demanded quickly. “That’s what we can’t make out, sir. Miss Cissy came up crying to the nursery, the first thing this morning, to tell me that her mamma had tumbled out of bed, and wouldn’t speak to her; and she couldn’t find her papa. So I ran downstairs directly, sir; and there I found my mistress on the ground, quite insensible, and she hasn’t moved a limb since.” “Good heavens!” I inwardly exclaimed, as I ran towards the house, “is it possible she can have been affected by the same cause?” I found Janie, as the nurse had said, unconscious; and it was some time before my remedies had any effect on her. When she opened her eyes, and understood the condition she had been in, she was seized with such a fit of nervous terror that she could do nothing but cling to me, and entreat me to take her away from Rushmere. Remembering my own experience, I readily promised her that she should not sleep another night in the house if she did not desire it. Soothed by my words, she gradually calmed down, and was at last able to relate the circumstance which had so terrified her. “Did you sleep in my room last night, dear Arthur?” she asked, curiously. “I did not. But since you awoke, you surely must have been aware of my absence.” “I know nothing, and remember nothing, except the awful horror that overpowered me. I had gone to sleep very happy last night, and none of my silly fears, as you have called them, ever entered my head. Indeed, I think I was in the midst of some pleasant dream, when I was awakened by the sound of a low sobbing by the bedside. Oh, such a strange, unearthly sobbing” (with a shudder). “I thought at first it must be poor little Cissy, who had been frightened again, and I put out my hand to her, saying,-- “‘Don’t be afraid, dear. I am here.’ “Directly, a hand was placed in mine--a cold, damp hand, with a deathlike, clayey feel about it that made me tremble. I knew at once it was not the child’s hand, and I started up in bed, exclaiming,-- “‘Who are you?’ “The room was quite dark, for I had pinned my shawl across the blind to keep the moon out of my eyes before I went to bed, and I could distinguish nothing. Yet still the cold, damp hand clung to mine, and seemed to strike the chill of death into my very bones. When I said, ‘Who are you?’ something replied to me. I cannot say it was a voice. It was more like some one hissing at me through closed teeth, but I could distinguish the name ‘Emily.’ “I was so frightened, Arthur, I did not know what to do. I wrenched my hand away from the dead hand. You were not there, and I called out loudly. I would have leaped out of bed, but that I heard the creeping footsteps, accompanied by the sobbing breath, go round the room, crying, ‘Father, father!’