He smiled to himself more than once during the intervening hours. As soon as tea was over, we excused ourselves to the family, kissed Lenore, and, saying that Mr. Burton would stay with me all night, we took our departure. I left the conduct of the proceedings in his hands. When we reached the cottage, we found Mrs. Scott disposed to regard the non-fulfillment of my engagement on the previous night as proof that I was frightened from the pursuit; she accepted my excuse, however, and highly approved of my having a companion in the spiritual dangers which I was about to encounter. She made us, moreover, some of her excellent coffee, to aid us in keeping awake, and gave us her prayers for our protection along with the keys of the house.
“Treat a ghost as you would any other burglar,” said my companion, as we approached the villa, in the darkness, by the back entrance. “Steal a march on him if you can.”
It was a wild night for an enterprise like ours. It reminded me of that night upon which Henry Moreland was murdered. One of those sudden changes in the weather, common to our climate, had been transpiring through the day, and now the warm, wild wind which brings in the “January thaw,” was blowing about the place, making every loose board creak, and rubbing the bare branches of the trees against each other with a grating sound. Black clouds, with ragged edges, skurried along the air, with the large stars looking down between, with wide, bright eyes, as of fear. While we stood outside, the great drops began to patter down; and presently it was raining violently, as it rained that night. As gently as if he were a robber making a felonious entrance, Mr. Burton turned the key in the lock; we entered the thick darkness of the house, closed the door, and stole noiselessly, I taking the lead, along the stairs and corridors, until we came to Henry’s room. This we entered, and, finding chairs, sat down upon either side the little table in absolute silence. But we might safely have knocked over half the furniture without giving alarm to any inmate—had there been an inmate of the room or villa—such a tremendous uproar was now made by the elements. As the rain dashed fitfully against the windows, and the wind shook the solitary building, I was nearly overpowered with the memories which the place and the storm so vivified. I was in a fit mood to become a convert to a nocturnal specter—in that hour of gloom and tempest, under the roof of the murdered, the material world seemed not so far removed from the awful and shadowy confines of the spiritual, as it appeared in the common routine of daylight life. As my heart thumped loudly with the agitation of feelings almost too powerful for mortal endurance, I was glad to consider that my companion was cool, calm and vigilant. He had no such memories of the wind and rain to overwhelm him as I had; this roof was not the roof of his friend—he did not know Eleanor.
It was rather impressive to the dullest imagination to be sitting there at night, in that empty mansion, in the darkness, with the storm beating around it, waiting for—we knew not what. To me, with my ardent temperament, and under the peculiar circumstances, it was exciting in the highest degree.
For a long time there was but one interruption to our silent watch. Mr. Burton leaned over the table, whispering,
“Did you hear some one singing?”
“I heard nothing but the wind, and the creaking of a tree against the side of the house, except the rain, that I would be sure of. Hark!”
I did think I heard a soft, angelic note of music swelling in the air above me, but at that moment the tempest redoubled its clamor, beating out all lesser sounds.
“Unless I am mistaken, there was a human voice,” he continued, in the same whisper.
“Or a heavenly one,” I murmured.