party broke up. An' next day all the visitors
staying in the house went away too.

"From that day a change come over the poor
thing that niver cleared away. She seemed
cowed-like, all the sperrit taken out of her; she
hardly ever went out, an' niver was allowed to
sthir over the threshold her lone. By degrees
—I can't tell how or when or where it first got
wind—there came a whisper that she wasn't
althegither right in the head, that there was
madness in the family, an' that she was goin'
like, the rest. Afore long the masther come to
take that view of it, an' watched her and kep'
her closer than ever. I don't know: althered
she was, but I niver see anything that looked
like madness about her: she always seemed to
me like wan stricken with some terrible fear
an' sorrow, an' hopelessness like wan who
found their life broke, and give in intirely.

"But maybe I was wrong, an' that that was
the form the madness took with her. Anyway,
the masther, who ought to know betther nor we
did, looked upon it as a hopeless case from the
first, an' as time went by, an' she got worse
instead of betther, he said it wasn't safe for her
to be about the house, an' she was shut up in
two rooms, her own bedroom an' the little
sittin'-room next it. She didn't seem to heed
much. Anyway, she niver complained to any of
us; in summer she'd sit by the window for
hours, lookin' at the say, dhramin', dhramin';
an' in winther she'd hang over the fire,
sittin' in a low chair, rocking herself to and fro
slowly, like wan in pain. Sometimes she'd take
a fit of writin', and write away by the hour, but
she seldom did anything else.

"Three years she went on like that; fadin',
fadin' slowly, an' then she died, an' was buried
with a funeral more fit for wan of us.

"Afther her death, the masther went away,
and niver came back to Rosscreagh. to live.
Sometimes he'd arrive all of a suddent, stay a
day or two, or three, to thransact business with
the agent, but as time went on, it was seldomer
and seldomer he came. Most of the sarvents
Delany among the rest had been discharged,
by ones or twos, from the time when the
misthress began to be talked of as gettin' out
of her mind. At last no wan was left but Jimmy
an' me, an' we had the care of the house, an'
a lonely place it was an' is, only now we've got
used to it.

"It's going on for eight-an'-twenty year now,
when news came the masther was dead—an'
how d'ye think? killed in a juel (duel) by Mr
Barry O'Brian, the misthress's own cousin.

"Well, then there came a dispute about the
ownership of the place, an' it was threw into
Chancery, whativer that may be, an' in Chancery
it is to this day, an, 'll remain till Doomsday,
as / b'lieve. And there, sur, 's the story
of Rosscreagh House, for the last thirty an' odd
years; an' sure it's long past twelve, it is, an'
won't ye go to your bed? I just made it up
in the misthress's room, as bein' the best in the
house. Ye won't be scarred (scared), will ye?"

I assured her there was no danger of my being
"scarred," and now, feeling for the first time
how stiff and fatigued I was, I, unintentionally
waking Jimmy from the profound slumber into
which he had fallen at an early period of the
narrative, followed Marget up-stairs into the
room prepared for me.

Bright enough it looked, with the fire flashing
on walls and furniture; but a damp, shut-up
smell told of desertion and decay. When, too,
candles were lighted, stained patches became
visible on the faded paper; the carpet had
been removed, the curtains and the draperies
of the toilet taken down, and cold and stiff and
heavy looked the old-fashioned furniture,
denuded of all that had given it grace and
ornament.

"Och ho! but the place is sorely changed."
Marget exclaimed, as if this brief installation
of an inhabitant seemed to bring the fact more
completely before her. "Ye'd not know the
room for the same as when she used to be in it
in the airly days. "An' here," opening a door,
"is her sittin'-room, where she used to sit at
the last, writin', writin' for hours at yon table.
There's some o' the papers, I b'lieve, in the
dhrawers yet. The masther burnt most o' them
and locked up the rest, intendin', I suppose, to
look over them when he had laysure; but the
time never come, and there they are."

I looked round the once pretty room, marked,
like the bedroom, with the stamp of a bygone
prosperity, the absence of the feminine
prettinesses and comforts that of old gave it its chief
charm leaving it a very corpse. The moral, no
less than the physical atmosphere of the room,
made me shiver.

"Sure an' it's time ye wer' in yer warrm bed,"
said Marget, seeing the involuntary motion.
"Niver sthir in the mornin' till I come to light
yer fire an' bring ye the hot wather. Good
night to ye, sur, an' I hope it's sleep sound ye
will."

She was gone, and I hastily divested myself
of my ridiculous costume, and got into bed as
quickly as I could.

But my sleep was painfully uneasy and interrupted.
The strange place, the howling blast and the
dashing rain that shook the rattling windows,
the dismal roar of the sea, above all, the
haunting remembrance of the tale I had heard
of her whose young life had faded out in this
very room, who had drawn her last breath this
very bed, kept me in a state of feverish unrest.
Between sleeping and waking, the idea of her
acquired an actuality, a reality, as of a bodily
presence; and by degrees came upon me
a desire, growing gradually into an intense
longing, to know all that was yet unveiled,
though so strongly suggested in the old servant's
narrative. At last the feeling grew so strong on
me as to rouse me into that state of nervous
excitable unrest that allows of no soothing, that
will be quieted by no lullaby, that makes him it
possesses feel that he is compelled to be up and
doing. I remembered Margaret's hint about
the papers. Could it—supposing I were able,
without effraction, to come upon something to
throw a gleam of light on this strange, sad
story—could it be a serious lapse of conscience