In the strength of Aggie’s presence, he was now able to take a survey of the room such as never before. Over walls, floor, and ceiling, his eyes were wandering, when suddenly a question arose on which he desired certainty: “Is there,” he said to himself, “a door upo’ the ither side o’ the bed?” “Did Grannie mak mention o’ sic a door?” he asked himself next, and could not be certain of the answer. He gazed around him, and saw no door other than that by which they had entered, but at the head of the bed, on the other side, was a space hidden by the curtain: it might be there! When they went to put the sheets on the bed, he would learn! He dared not go till then! “Dare not!” he repeated to himself--and went at once. He saw and trembled. It was the strangest feeling. If it was not fear, it was something very like it, but with a mixture of wondrous pleasure: there was the door! The curtains hid Aggie, and for a moment he felt as if he were miles alone, and must rush back to the refuge of her presence. But he would not yield to the folly--compelled himself to walk to the door. Whether he was more disappointed or relieved, he could not, the first instant, have told: instead of a door, scarcely leaning against the wall, was an old dark screen, in stamped leather, from which the gilding was long faded. Disappointment and not relief was then his only sense. “Aggie,” he called, still on the farther side of the bed--he called gently, but trembled at the sound of his own voice--“did ye ever hear--did Grannie mak mention o’ a door ’at the auld captain gaed oot at?” “Whisht, whisht!” cried Aggie, in a loud hissing whisper, which seemed to pierce the marrow of Cosmo’s bones, “I rede ye say nae thing aboot that i’ this chaumer. Bide till we’re oot o’ ’t: I hae near dune. Syne we’ll steek the door, an’ lat the fire work. It’ll hae eneuch adu afore it mak the place warm; the cauld intil this room’s no a coamon ane. There’s something by ord’nar intil ’t.” Cosmo could no longer endure having the great, old, hearse-like bed between him and Aggie. With a shiver in the very middle of his body, he hastened to the other side: there lay the country of air, and fire, and safe earthly homeliness: the side he left was the dank region of the unknown, whose march-ditch was the grave. They hurried with the rest of their work. Aggie insisted on being at the farther side of the bed when they made it. Not another word was spoken between them, till they were safe from the room, and had closed its door behind them.