As usual, Mrs. Legare and Mathilde saw me to my room, and, as before, I locked the door behind them, and listened until I heard them leave the house and secure the hall entrance. Then I hastened my preparations, got into bed, and, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and loss of rest, soon fell into a deep sleep. And a third time the dream or vision passed before me. Methought I was awakened by a voice calling my name. I opened my eyes, and saw--first the door stretched wide open, and then, standing in the middle of the floor, the beautiful and majestic woman of my former visions, but this time more sad and stern in aspect than before. Fixing those wild, mournful eyes upon mine, and holding my gaze as it were by a mesmeric spell, she slowly and severely pointed to the spot beneath her feet, and saying, as it were, "Look!" passed in measured steps from the room. Once more in an agony I started up to call and stay her, but with the effort awoke. The door that I had carefully locked stood wide open as before. It was the same hour as that of my awakening upon the two previous mornings. The day was flushing redly up the eastern horizon beyond the mountains, and nature was awakening everywhere. I could not now so readily shake off the influence of my dream. There was something that I wished to ascertain before my little maid should interrupt me; the reiterated gesture by the woman of my dream, determined me to examine the spot upon which she had stood and pointed, to see if, really, her action had any meaning. So I arose from my bed, and, first securing the door, and turning the key straight in the lock, that my little maid, should she come, might not spy my doings, I removed the hearthrug took a pair of strong scissors and drew out the tacks, turned up the carpet. Reader! I had an attraction to the supernatural, but a mortal antagonism to the horrible, and nearly swooned on seeing the spot to which the dark woman of my vision had pointed deeply marked with a sanguine-crimson stain! The very heart in my bosom seemed frozen with horror, and I felt myself, as it were, turning to stone, when a loud knocking at my chamber door aroused me. It was my little maid, whose coming, I, in my deep and fearful abstractions, had not heard. I hurriedly replaced the carpet and the rug, and went and opened the door. "Yer sleeped soun' dis mornin', Miss Agnes, ma'am," said little Jet, smiling as she entered. "I feared I scared you out'n your dream," she added, noticing, I suppose, my horror-stricken face. "You certainly startled me, Jet," I said, evasively. And while she lighted the fire, I returned to bed to try to compose my nerves. Between the horror I felt at the idea of sleeping another night alone in an accursed room, where, it seemed, a crime had been committed, and my intense desire to elucidate the mystery, I was at a loss how to act. Only one thing I decided upon--to keep my own counsel for the present.