Mr. Daventry folded up the will, and took off his spectacles. The visitors began to disperse, some partaking of refreshment, which was laid out in another room, some declining it; and at length the old house and its inmates were left to themselves, Mr. Daventry alone remaining. General matters of business had to be spoken of; the afternoon waned, and Ella asked him to dine with them. The old lawyer accepted the offer, but left as soon as the meal was over. It had been served in a cosy panelled room, not far from the entrance-hall. It was a more cheerful room than many of the larger ones, and Ella and Mrs. Carlyon had sat mostly in it these few days since their return. They sat together now, in the pleasant May twilight, talking in undertones of many things past and to come. By-and-by one of the housemaids brought in candles, and Mrs. Carlyon, who was a great reader, went in search of a certain book which she knew to be somewhere in her bedroom, without being exactly sure where. Some last faint traces of twilight still lingered in the sky, and she went up without a light. Crossing the entrance-hall, Mrs. Carlyon ascended the great staircase, and traversed the gallery until she reached the corridor into which the door of her room opened. In searching for the book she threw down a tray from her dressing-table, containing sundry small articles; and she wished she had brought a light as she stooped to feel for them and pick them up. It was accomplished at last, and the book was found; but all this had taken some little time, and the dusk had deepened in the corridors, and the gallery as Mrs. Carlyon went out. In fact, coming from the light afforded by the windows of her room, they looked quite dark. "Let me see--this is the way, I think," said Mrs. Carlyon to herself, hesitating as to the turning she ought to take in the gallery; and finally she took the wrong one. Three or four minutes later she rushed into the sitting-room with a white face and startled eyes, and sank into a chair, thoroughly overcome. Ella rose up in alarm. "Good gracious, aunt," she cried, "what is the matter? Has anything happened?" "Oh, child, I--I think I must be very foolish--but I have just had a terrible fright." And the fright was upon her still, to judge by the trembling voice and hands. "But what has frightened you?" asked Ella. "That's the strangest part of it; that I don't know what--or who," spoke Mrs. Carlyon, after a pause and an effort to collect herself. "I went up for my book, you know, Ella, and I was rather long finding it; and when I got into the corridors and gallery again it was dark, and I missed my way, I suppose. At all events, instead of coming to the staircase as I expected, I presently found myself in a part of the house quite strange to me--at least, it seemed so in the dusk----" "Was it the north wing?" involuntarily interrupted Ella.