The road was a dark line in the gray landscape and she watched eagerly for a figure to arise from it into vision. It was the evening that Mark should come, and she remembered that she had parted from him almost in anger. She had expected then to see him soon again, in a few weeks at the furthest, but the weeks had grown into months. There had been trouble with the Indians on the frontier and Mark was ordered to report for active duty and sent away a long distance from home. What a long, dreary winter it had been, even though her mother had been with her. Alice sighed as she thought of it. Even the mother had gone back to her Eastern home now, and she was alone. Ah, she was glad, very glad Mark was coming; but there was a shadow of fear tinging the brightness of her joy. She had disobeyed him. She compressed her lips as she thought again of the command he had laid upon her. Why had he been so bitter and prejudiced in regard to Professor Russell? Mark was usually so tolerant of others’ beliefs and foibles. It could not be from the cause the Professor had once insinuated. A hot flush of shame swept over her as she thought of that dreadful insinuation. Surely, the man had forgotten himself when he hinted that. She should never dare repeat his words to Mark. He would shoot him, she feared. Perhaps Mark was right in his dislike for the man, but she could not refuse to credit his doctrine. Surely, surely she had proof of unseen visitants surrounding her. She felt their presence. And even as she thus thought, a shiver of fear came over her. The air about her grew chill. In imagination she could see without, in the gathering darkness, a host of shadowy forms flitting backward and forward before her, like swarms of tiny insects in the atmosphere. How they swarmed about her and over her as she grew colder and her breathing more difficult. Involuntarily she turned her head and glanced backward over her shoulder. The shadows had deepened in the room. A frightful figure began to take shape before her excited vision. Her heart beat loudly and painfully. Her breath came in gasps. A moment, and the shape began to approach her. She gazed in fascinated terror into the darkness, not daring to move. Nearer and nearer it came,—ah, God! Alice felt her limbs sinking beneath her, and dropping to the floor she cowered and covered her face with her hands. Oh, the fright and awfulness of that moment! She felt the forms all about her, shadowing and overpowering her. She heard them in a swarming, buzzing confusion of sound. Suddenly, out from it all came another sound, louder and more distinct, but she was too paralyzed to reason. She heard the sound of heavy footsteps outside. Nearer and nearer they came. The door opened. Some one approached in the half darkness. There was a rushing and roaring as of many waters in Alice’s brain, and she crouched lower and lower and uttered a faint shriek of terror.