As those wild, unearthly cries rang through the house, Oran Delaney stood for a moment like one rooted to the floor. His face had whitened to the ghastliness of death, a smoldering fire flashed from his splendid dark eyes, he ground a fierce, smothered imprecation between his strong, white teeth. “What is it? Oh! Mr. Delaney, what is it?” shuddered Aline, clinging convulsively to his arm. He started, and looked down at the sweet, white face, with its frightened blue eyes and chattering teeth. He did not answer, for again that dreadful, diabolic shriek of anger, frightening all the sleeping echoes into hideous sound, rang through the house: “Ah--h--h! Ah--h--h!” This time it sounded nearer, as if the ghostly utterer were coming rapidly upon the scene. Horror flashed from Oran Delaney’s eyes. With a sudden, swift, abrupt movement he shook the little, clinging hands from his sleeve, and moved toward the grand stairway that led to the upper regions of the house. With his foot upon the stair, he turned and looked back, pierced by the low, reproachful wail of fear and pain that burst from Aline’s lips. He saw the beautiful, graceful figure of the girl standing in the dark, gloomy hall, lighting its gloom with her beauty, like a flower or a star. Like one distraught, he waved his hand to her. “Fly, fly!” he shouted, hoarsely. “Lose not a moment! To linger in this terrible place means death!” Then he flew up the wide and winding stairway as if his feet were winged, and the girl, whose own willful folly and curiosity had brought her to this pass, stood like one rooted to the spot, filled with trembling and horror. She knew not where to fly. She was in the center of a long, dark hall, with doors opening into rooms on either hand and at either end. Through one of these latter doors she had come with Oran Delaney to the dining-room, but to save her life she could not have told which one. Oh, how horrible it was standing there, with those strange shrieks ringing in her ears, and feeling, with a strange despair at her heart, that Oran Delaney had fled from her like a coward, and left her to perish of this mysterious, unknown danger, rushing nearer and nearer! “Ah--h--h! Ah--h--h!” again rang shrilly in her frightened hearing, and, impelled by maddening fear, Aline sprung wildly forward and rushed to one of those wide hall doors, which she hoped would give her egress from this horror-haunted house, into sunshine and security again. She reached out her white hand gropingly for the door-knob, opened and fled through it as if pursued by a legion of fiends. It swung to heavily behind her, and her feet sunk deep into the velvet pile of a fine, rich carpet like softest moss. She was in the long and lofty parlors, where the dust lay thick upon the linen covers of the costly furniture, and the gleaming mirrors and splendid paintings were curtained from the sight. A cry of despair escaped her lips as she realized the truth.