"She is dead," shivered Susan. "Oh, believe that. I am as sure of it as that we two are standing here. At first I didn't believe she was dead; I couldn't: but now that the months have gone on, and on, I feel that there's no hope. If she were alive she would not fail to let us know it to ease our sorrow--all this while! Katherine was more loving and thoughtful than you can tell." "It's said she had no sweetheart: or else----" Eliza was beginning. But the other went on, never hearing. "If she were not dead, she would not come to me so often in my dreams--and she's always dead in them. And, look here," added the girl, in awed tones, drawing a step nearer, and gently pressing against Eliza's arm: "I wish some one could tell me why her hair is always wet when she appears. I can see water dripping from the ends of it." Eliza shuddered, and glanced involuntarily around. "Sometimes she calls me as if from a distance, and then I awake," resumed Susan. "She wants me to find her--I know that; but I never can, though I am looking for her continually." "This poor thing must be crazed," thought the bewildered woman-servant. "And I've fancied that you might help me. I've come about here at night, wanting to see you, and ask you, for ever so long. You can watch, and look, and listen when you are going about your work in the house, and perhaps you will come upon her, or some trace of her." "Good mercy! You surely can't think she is _in_ the house!" exclaimed Eliza. "I am sure she's in it." "What--dead?" "She must be dead. She can't be alive--all these weary weeks and months." "I never heard of such a belief," cried Eliza. "What it is that's thought--leastways, as it has been told to me and my fellow-servant, Phemie--is, that it is her spirit that is in the house, and haunts it." "Her spirit does haunt it," affirmed poor Susan. "But she is there too." Eliza felt as if a rush of cold air were passing over her. "Something wrong was done to her; she was killed in some way; and I'd sooner think it was by a woman than a man," went on Susan, dreamily. "It all happened in the north wing. And then they carried her away for concealment to one of the dark unused rooms in it, and left her there, shut up--perhaps for ever. That's how it must have been." "Dear me!" gasped Eliza, hardly knowing, in her dismay, whether this was theory or fact. "And so if you could watch, and come upon any clue, and would kindly bring it to us, me and mother, we'd be ever grateful. Perhaps you know our inn--the 'Leaning Gate'--as you go from here to Nullington." "Stay a moment," said Eliza, a thought striking her: "does your mother think all this that you've been telling me?--does she want me to watch?"