Once more in an agony I started up to call and stay her, but with the effort awoke. The door that I had carefully locked stood wide open as before. It was the same hour as that of my awakening upon the two previous mornings. The day was flushing redly up the eastern horizon beyond the mountains, and nature was awakening everywhere.
I could not now so readily shake off the influence of my dream. There was something that I wished to ascertain before my little maid should interrupt me; the reiterated gesture by the woman of my dream, determined me to examine the spot upon which she had stood and pointed, to see if, really, her action had any meaning. So I arose from my bed, and, first securing the door, and turning the key straight in the lock, that my little maid, should she come, might not spy my doings, I removed the hearthrug took a pair of strong scissors and drew out the tacks, turned up the carpet.
Reader! I had an attraction to the supernatural, but a mortal antagonism to the horrible, and nearly swooned on seeing the spot to which the dark woman of my vision had pointed deeply marked with a sanguine-crimson stain! The very heart in my bosom seemed frozen with horror, and I felt myself, as it were, turning to stone, when a loud knocking at my chamber door aroused me. It was my little maid, whose coming, I, in my deep and fearful abstractions, had not heard. I hurriedly replaced the carpet and the rug, and went and opened the door.
"Yer sleeped soun' dis mornin', Miss Agnes, ma'am," said little Jet, smiling as she entered. "I feared I scared you out'n your dream," she added, noticing, I suppose, my horror-stricken face.
"You certainly startled me, Jet," I said, evasively. And while she lighted the fire, I returned to bed to try to compose my nerves.
Between the horror I felt at the idea of sleeping another night alone in an accursed room, where, it seemed, a crime had been committed, and my intense desire to elucidate the mystery, I was at a loss how to act. Only one thing I decided upon—to keep my own counsel for the present.
"De fire is burnin' fus-rate now, Miss Agnes, so you can get up an' dress, if you likes, as break'as' is mos' ready," said my little attendant. And taking her hint, I arose and hastened my toilet, in order to be punctual at the morning meal of my hostess.
As I descended the stairs, I heard Mrs. Legare speaking to her daughter in the parlor, where a fire was kindled every morning while there were visitors in the house. She was saying:
"I tell you, Mathilde, it is all a delusion. Those who have never heard the story, never see, or hear, or fancy anything unusual. You know now Agnes has not been disturbed, and it is because she has heard nothing. Whereas, if you had told her this history, she would have imagined, Heaven knows what! all sorts of horrors! that is the reason I wished her to hear nothing of it. She has slept undisturbed in that room. Let that be known. Others will then not object to do so, and the report will die out."
She spoke in a quick, low tone, and, seeing me coming, instantly changed the subject. But my sense of hearing, always acute, was quickened by intense interest, and I had heard more than she could have wished me to know. She turned to me with a smile, and said: