.

OF THE VISITOR WHO RAN DOWN THE ROAD IN THE NIGHT-TIME.
It was a quarter past ten o'clock by the parlour timepiece when my father went off to his room, and left Esther and myself together.

We heard his slow steps dying away up the creaking staircase, until the distant slamming of a door announced that he had reached his sanctum.
The simple oil lamp upon the table threw a weird, uncertain light over the old room, flickering upon the carved oak panelling, and casting strange, fantastic shadows from the high-elbowed, straight-backed furniture.

My sister's white, anxious face stood out in the obscurity with a startling exactness of profile like one of Rembrandt's portraits.
We sat opposite to each other on either side of the table with no sound breaking the silence save the measured ticking of the clock and the intermittent chirping of a cricket beneath the grate.
There was something awe-inspiring in the absolute stillness.

The whistling of a belated peasant upon the high road was a relief to us, and we strained our ears to catch the last of his notes as he plodded steadily homewards.
At first we had made some pretence--she of knitting and I of reading--but we soon abandoned the useless deception, and sat uneasily waiting, starting and glancing at each other with questioning eyes whenever the faggot crackled in the fire or a rat scampered behind the wainscot.