"Why, don't you know? This is Black Hall, and I am the caretaker."
"Black Hall!" echoed the man, starting up and gazing around him with an excitement that caused his wound to break out bleeding again. "Black Hall! Is it here that I must die? Here, and—great Heaven!—in the very room where the crime was committed! In the very room haunted by her memory!"
And covering his face with his hands, he fell back upon the pillow.
"Tabby, more brandy!" hastily exclaimed the old lady, as she nervously pressed a fresh piece of lint into the gushing wound.
"Yes, more brandy," he faintly whispered; "keep me alive, if possible, till the lawyer comes."
Miss Tabby brought the stimulant, and Mrs. Winterose put it to his lips.
"But, oh, this room! this fatal room! this haunted room!" he murmured, with a shudder.
"Be quiet, good man; this an't the room where the lady was murdered," said Miss Tabby.
"And which is haunted by her ghost to this day," put in Miss Libby, who had come up to the side of the bed.
"Not—not the room where Rosa was murdered this day fifteen years ago?" murmured the man, gazing around him. "Am I delirious, then? It seems the very same room, only with different furniture."