of his answer, however, was not altogether borne out by his actions. He went with reluctant steps to the door, peered out into the passage, then remarked that it was very dark, and a candle would be useful. When the candle was lighted, it suddenly struck him that he could not hold the candle and carry the log at the same time; so I had to accompany him. The operation was at length accomplished, but not without two false alarms; the first resulting from our own shadows, the second caused by the mysterious creaking of an open door: and I proceeded to repeat my cousin's adventure, as nearly as I could remember, in his own words.

THE EDITOR'S STORY.

Yes, they were certainly lodgings after my own heart, were those rooms of mine at Leabank. It was not a new house-I hate those staring edifices of bright red brick, which bear the brand of the nineteenth century upon their bold unblushing brows. They always seem to me to be proclaiming to the world in general, "Here we are, replete with all the improvements of this wonderful age: temples of the goddess Utility; not a square foot of room, not the thickness of a brick wasted in us; gas laid on from attic to cellar; offices heated by patent hot water apparatus; within one minute's walk of the railway station. A slight improvement, we take it, upon our rambling, draughty, ill-contrived, and inconvenient predecessors!" However, as I said before, my lodgings did not offend me in this way. I do not know that they boasted any great antiquity; neither had they any particular architectural merits, as far as I am aware: but they wore an air of homely comfort which was more alluring to me than all the latest improvements could have been.

My domain consisted of a sitting-room and a bedroom, both on the first floor; the former looking out over the garden, with a distant view of the river Lea

winding in chequered light and shade through rich meadows and pleasant pastures, till it was lost to view in the mazes of encroaching woods; the latter on the opposite side of the house and facing the street. This street-view of my bedroom was the one flaw in the perfection of my lodgings. For, although I had been assured by Mrs. Marks, my landlady, that she had no bedroom at liberty which commanded a view of the country, I had my own reasons for believing the contrary; seeing that there was a door next to my sitting-room, which could not but open into a room facing the same way. This I had suspected from the first but my suspicions were one day accidentally changed into certainty. I had started early one morning to walk to a village some ten miles away, where I had promised to spend the day with an old College friend; and I had accordingly told Mrs. Marks not to expect me home until late in the evening. However, l'homme propose. Scarcely had I reached the top of the first hill out of Leabank, when I met my friend driving in at full speed. When he saw me he pulled up, and told me, with many apologies, that he had just received a telegram announcing the illness of his father, and that he was then on the way to the station to catch the 9 o'clock down express to Staffordshire. Under these circumstances I had nothing to do but to offer my condolences and turn back, meditating on the instability of human affairs. On my way to my sittingroom I had to pass the mysterious door; but what was my surprise to see that it was open, and not only so, but to find my suspicion realized to the utmost! It was a bedroom, and it overlooked that rural paradise which I was so anxious to view from my bedroom window. It was evident from the disarrangement of the rather scanty furniture in the room, that Mrs. Marks had taken advantage of my absence to effect her periodical "cleaning" of the room, and that I was indebted to my sudden return for my discovery of the falsehood

she had practised upon me. I was sorry to come to

this conclusion; for I had found Mr. and Mrs. Marks in other respects not only obliging, but also, as I thought, honest and truthful to a degree; which, accustomed as I was to London lodgings, I had keenly appreciated. However, I determined at once to take advantage of my discovery to secure the much-desired bedroom. Acting on this resolution I rang the bell, and asked for Mrs. Marks. On that lady's appearance I explained that my visit had been postponed, and proceeded to say

"Mrs. Marks, I think I must have misunderstood you; I thought you said there was no bed-room you could let me have on this side of the house. I see that the next room is unoccupied, and it commands even a better prospect than this does. I should much prefer it to the room I now have."

"If you remember, sir," replied Mrs. Marks, not without a look of trouble upon her face, “we told you that we had no other bed-room we could let you have. It is quite true, sir, what we said; we could not recommend that room to you. I cannot tell you why, sir; but you may be sure we would do anything we could to oblige you. We should be doing wrong to put you into that room; we should indeed."

While Mrs. Marks had been speaking, I had been closely watching her; and so convinced was I that truth and honesty were written on her face, that I altered my opinion of her falsehood, and felt that I could press my request no further. At the same time I was obliged to confess to myself that her conduct was inexplicable on any other hypothesis than that of falsehood. However, there was nothing for it but to say—

"Well, Mrs. Marks, if it must be so, it must. I cannot afford to quarrel with you just for the sake of a mere fancy. But can you not give me any hope that I may have the room at some future time, if I cannot now?"

“I am afraid not, sir," she said. "Anything else you like to mention, sir, I am sure

"There is nothing but this," I interrupted, "and I must make up my mind to forego my whim. Good morning."

When Mrs. Marks had gone, I began to ruminate upon what had passed, but I could form no satisfactory theory to account for her conduct, and I was compelled to admit that the whole thing was a mystery. A mystery? Why had I not once said that lodgings, to be quite perfect, should have a mystery about them. Well, I had got my mystery; but, now that I had got it, I reluctantly owned that it was not so pleasant as I had anticipated. I never passed the room without an uneasy feeling of curiosity, which at times amounted to an absolute craving for some solution of the inexplicable enigma. However, though I had failed in gaining my point, the room was now much less jealousy closed to my intrusion than before; and not unfrequently when I came in late on a summer evening I found the door temptingly open, and, sauntering in, was free to watch the last glow of the sunset die out upon the river, and the white sails of the pleasure-boats glancing through the screen of trees which sheltered the most distant reach of the Lea-the latter an effect which was obtained to less advantage from my sitting-room. I had turned in one evening in rather a thoughtful mood, intending to remain a few minutes and then retire to bed, when my attention was arrested by the position occupied by a large star close to the dark edge of the moon, and as I saw that the obscuration of the former must take place in ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, I decided to stay and watch its disappearance. Meanwhile I threw myself into an old-fashioned arm-chair that stood in the room, and almost immediately forgot my curiosity in a sound slumber. When I awoke, it was with the sensation rather of recovering from a swoon

than of awaking from sleep. The first thing I was conscious of, was that I was in perfect darkness except for the glimmer of the summer night through the window; the next was that I was stiff and cold, and yet was covered with a chill moisture, congealed, as it were, in large drops all over my body. I had, too, a strange pain in my head, and on putting up my hand to it found that it was apparently laid open with a broad and deep cut behind. I also discovered, on attempting to move, that I was stretched on the floor with my head close to the arm-chair in which I had fallen asleep. I lay some minutes before I could collect my strength sufficiently to assume a standing posture; and when I had done so, I was seized with a sudden horror; my blood ran cold, my knees shook, and I nearly fell heavily upon the floor. With slow and uncertain steps I at length made my way to the door, which was fortunately open, and tottering into the passage propped myself against the wall until the acute pain in my head in some measure aroused me to a sense of my position, and I made my way into my bed-room just opposite and struck a light. As I did so, my eyes fell involuntarily upon the looking-glass, and there I saw a sight which absolutely struck me with terror. A cadaverous face streaming with a ghastly dew exuding from every pore; eyes deeply sunk in the head, and with a scared look in their distended pupils; and, finally, a mass of dishevelled hair clotted in thick blood-stained masses above the temples and dripping with gore which had left its traces upon my disordered dress, could this be the work of some four hours' sleep in an empty room? Had I not in truth been battling with the powers of darkness present in bodily form, but armed with the strength of supernatural malignity? I was still shaking from head to foot, and with difficulty contrived to wash the blood from my head, and bind up the wound with my handkerchief. This done, I mechanically wound up my watch, which stood at