If I was to do anything, it must be on the Black Hill itself; and thither, accordingly, I resolved to go.
But before I quitted Kilgorman I had another duty scarcely less sacred than that of saving a life from destruction.

I stood on the very spot to which my mother's last message had pointed me, and nothing should tear me now from the place till that wandering spirit was eased of its nightly burden.
"_If you love God, whoever you are_," (so the message ran), "_seek below the great hearth; and what you find there, see to it, as you hope for grace.

God send this into the hands of one who loves truth and charity.
Amen_." Even while I repeated the words to myself, my ear seemed to catch the fluttering footstep advancing down the passage and hear the rustle of the woman's dress as she passed through the door and approached my hiding-place.

A beam of moonlight struck across the floor, and the night wind-swept with a wail round the gables without.

Then all was silence, except what seemed to my strained senses a light tap, as with the sole of a foot, on the flagstone that stretched across in front of the fireplace.