"You can, of course, open a padlock?" "Ou ay, when it's no owre auld, and the brass slide has been well kept on the key-hole." Then, as if recollecting himself, "I hinna tried an auld ane for years." "One twenty years unopened?" rejoined the stranger. Geordie was again dumb and rigid. "Indeed, sir," replied Christian, who saw that her husband was under some strong feeling, "he can pick ony lock." "The very man," said the mysterious visitor. "And now, madam, will you allow me to take the liberty of requesting to be for a few moments the only one present in this room with your husband, as I have some business of a very secret nature to transact with him, which it would not be proper for a woman, even of your evident discretion and confidence, to be acquainted with?" "I dinna want ye to gang," whispered George. "And what for no?" muttered she. "Let evil-doers dree the shame o' their deeds. Didna ye say to me ye were an honest man, ay, even as cauld iron or steel, and what ought ye to hae to fear? And now, sir," turning round, "I will e'en tak me to the kitchen, that what ye want wi' George Gourlay you may do in secret, even as he has been secret wi' me." Then guidwife Christian went out, casting, as she went, a look of something like triumph at her husband. "And now, George Gourlay," said the stranger, "the secret thing I have to transact with you, and for which I have come three thousand miles, is to ask you to go with me this night and open the padlock of the door of that house below, which has not been opened for twenty years." "I winna, I canna, I daurna, sir. Gang to the Dean o' Guild. There's a dead body in the green bed, and there's a spirit in a lang white goun that watches it." The hand of the stranger shook, as he grasped spasmodically his staff; his teeth for a moment were clenched; and he plainly showed a resolution not to seem moved by that which as clearly did move him to the innermost parts of his being. Nor did it now escape Gourlay, as he sat and gazed at him, that he was the original of that picture in the dining-room, which hung by the side of the beautiful lady. "Then you must have been in?" Geordie was silent, meditating on some new light gradually breaking in upon him. "You must have been in, and--and--know the secret?" "I ken nae secret, except it be that the goose which has been at the fire for twenty years is no roasted yet." "That goose at the fire even yet!" ejaculated the stranger. "Ay, and the thread still on the pirn." "Pirn!" responded he mechanically. "Ay, and the bottle standing on the dresser along by the pewter mug." "Mug!" "Ay, and the half-cut loaf on the oaken table, with alongside o't the knife." "Knife!" "Ay, and to cap a', the green bed with the dark red counterpane, and in it still the corpse." "Corpse!"