“Oh, my dear,” says she, taking my hand, “I’m so glad and thankful you’ve come back to us!”

That struck me, as you may imagine.  “Why,” said I, “did you think I was leaving for good?”

“No, no, to be sure,” said she, a little confused, “but I can’t a-bear to have madam left alone for a day even.”  She pressed my hand hard, and, “Oh, Miss Hartley,” says she, “be good to your mistress, as you’re a Christian woman.”  And with that she hurried away, and left me staring.

A moment later Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton.  Hearing Mr. Brympton’s voice in her room, I went round by the dressing-room, thinking I would lay out her dinner-gown before going in.  The dressing-room is a large room with a window over the portico that looks toward the gardens.  Mr. Brympton’s apartments are beyond.  When I went in, the door into the bedroom was ajar, and I heard Mr. Brympton saying angrily:—­“One would suppose he was the only person fit for you to talk to.”

“I don’t have many visitors in winter,” Mrs. Brympton answered quietly.

“You have me!” he flung at her, sneering.

“You are here so seldom,” said she.

“Well—­whose fault is that?  You make the place about as lively as a family vault—­”

With that I rattled the toilet-things, to give my mistress warning and she rose and called me in.

The two dined alone, as usual, and I knew by Mr. Wace’s manner at supper that things must be going badly.  He quoted the prophets something terrible, and worked on the kitchen-maid so that she declared she wouldn’t go down alone to put the cold meat in the ice-box.  I felt nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to bed I was half-tempted to go down again and persuade Mrs. Blinder to sit up awhile over a game of cards.  But I heard her door closing for the night, and so I went on to my own room.  The rain had begun again, and the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain.  I lay awake listening to it, and turning over what my friend in town had said.  What puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left...

After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me.  My bell had rung.  I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to go on jangling through the darkness.  My hands shook so that I couldn’t find the matches.  At length I struck a light and jumped out of bed.  I began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at the bell against the wall, and there was the little hammer still quivering.

I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another sound.  This time it was the door of the locked room opposite mine softly opening and closing.  I heard the sound distinctly, and it frightened me so that I stood stock still.  Then I heard a footstep hurrying down the passage toward the main house.  The floor being carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a woman’s step.  I turned cold with the thought of it, and for a minute or two I dursn’t breathe or move.  Then I came to my senses.