Then he hesitated.
"Excuse me," he said, "but may I ask you if there is any one now in the parlour where we were last night ?" "No one is there," replied the little girl.
"Could you let me just go in and see where she was ?" asked Paul, humbly.
"I would not keep you a moment." Alta, in her character of door-keeper to this house of mystery, was, doubtless, in the habit of seeing queer people, bent on queer errands.
She merely asked him to step within the hall, saying that she would speak to her mother.

Presently she returned with the desired permission, and, producing a key, unlocked the parlour door, and ushered Paul in.
It was late in the afternoon, and the heavy curtains and blinds left the rooms almost dark.

There was barely light enough to see that all was just as it had been the night before.

The sounds of the street penetrated the closed apartments but faintly.

With the step of one on holy ground, Paul advanced to the spot where he had been seated when the vision appeared to him the night before.
Aided by the darkness, the silence, and by the identity of the surroundings, the memory of that vision returned to him as he stood there with a vividness which, in the overwrought condition of his nerves, it was impossible for him to distinguish from reality.