"Yes—yes, uncle," said Katherine, hastily.
"And it was close upon midnight, when I thought I would go to bed. Well—I undressed myself, and as there was only a little bit of candle left, I didn't blow the light out, but put the candlestick into the fire-place. I then got into bed. In a very few minutes I fell into a sort of doze—more asleep than awake though, because I dreamt of the man that I hanged yesterday week. I didn't, however, sleep very long; for I woke with a start just as Saint Giles's was a striking twelve. The light was flickering in the candlestick, for it was just dying away. You know how a candle burnt down to the socket flares at one moment, and then seems quite dead the next, but revives again immediately afterwards?"
"Yes, uncle," answered Katherine; "and I have often thought that in the silent and solemn midnight it is an awful thing to see."
"So it struck me at that moment," continued the executioner. "I felt a strange sensation creeping all over me; the candle flared and flickered; and I thought it had gone out. Then it revived once more, and threw a strong but only a momentary light around the room. At that instant my eyes were fixed in the direction of the puppet; and, as sure as you are sitting there, Kate, another face looked at me over its shoulder!"
"Oh! my dear uncle, it was the imagination," said the young girl, casting an involuntary glance of timidity around.
"Is a man like me one of the sort to be deluded by the imagination?" asked Smithers, somewhat contemptuously. "Haven't I been too long in a certain way to have any foolish fears of that sort?"
"But when we are unwell, uncle, the bravest of us may perceive strange visions, which are nothing more than the sport of the imagination," urged Kate.
"I tell you this had nothing to do with the imagination," persisted the executioner. "I saw another face as plain as I see yours now; and—more than that—its glassy eyes were fixed upon me in a manner which I shall never forget. It was a warning—I know it was."
Kate made no reply: she saw the inutility of arguing with her uncle upon the subject; and she was afraid of provoking his irritable temper by contending against his obstinacy.
"But we won't talk any more about it, Kate," said the executioner, after a pause. "I know how to take it; and it doesn't frighten me; it only makes me dull. It hasn't prevented me from sleeping in my old quarters; nor will it, if I can help it. But you want to be off—I see you are getting fidgetty."