I was as anxious to leave as she was, and had I been alone I should have rushed downstairs in blind haste, but I had to attend to my wife. The power of rapid motion had deserted her, and when we were about to pass through the passage she shrunk back, fearing that the apparition of the young girl was lurking there. She experienced the same fear as we descended the stairs, and clung to me in terror when we approached an open door. I was grateful that the apparition of the cat--which followed us faithfully down to the hall--was invisible to her; if it had not been she would have lost her senses again, and it would have been hard work for me to carry her out, as she is by no means of a light weight. The question which now agitated me was whether the cat would come into the streets with us, or would return to the resting place which should have been its last. It was soon and plainly answered. I opened the street door, and stood upon the threshold. The cat stood there also. I paused to give it the opportunity of returning, but it evinced no desire to do so. I went down the stone steps to the front garden; the cat accompanied me. I walked through the front garden out of the gate, straight into Lamb's Terrace, and thence across the wretched wastes of ground into more cheerful thoroughfares; and the skeleton cat was by my side the whole of the time. The evidence of civilized life by which we were now surrounded restored Maria's spirits; she found her tongue. "Why did you stop on the doorstep, Edward?" she asked. "I had to lock the street door," I answered. "We will not take that house, my dear," she said. "No, we will not take it." Some unaccustomed note in my voice struck her as strange. "Is anything the matter with you?" she asked. "No," I replied, glancing at the cat, "nothing." "What are you looking at? Why are your eyes wandering so?" "My dear," I said, with an attempt to speak in a lively tone, and failing dismally, "I must be a bit unstrung, that is all." She accepted my explanation as satisfactory. "No wonder," she said; "I would not go through such another trial for all the money in the world." CHAPTER VII. I MAKE SOME SINGULAR EXPERIMENTS. For a little while we walked along in silence, and then I asked my wife whether she would ride or walk home. "I should prefer to walk," she said; "it is early, and the air is fresh and reviving. Things look all the brighter now we are out of that horrible place. A walk will do us good."