Nothing appeared, not even a mouse, and Hester turned to my lady with an air of relief.

But her mistress pointed to the bed shrouded in dark velvet hangings, and whispered breathlessly, "You forgot to look there." Hester had not forgotten, but in spite of her courage and good sense she shrank a little from looking at the spot where she had last seen her master's dead face.

She believed the light and sound to be phantoms of my lady's distempered fancy, and searched merely to satisfy her.

The mystery of Sir Richard's death still haunted the minds of all who remembered it, and even Hester felt a superstitious dread of that room.
With a nervous laugh she looked under the bed and, drawing back the heavy curtains, said soothingly, "You see, my lady, there's nothing there." But the words died on her lips, for, as the pale glimmer of the candle pierced the gloom of that funeral couch, both saw a face upon the pillow: a pale face framed in dark hair and beard, with closed eyes and the stony look the dead wear.

A loud, long shriek that roused the house broke from Lady Trevlyn as she fell senseless at the bedside, and dropping both curtain and candle Hester caught up her mistress and fled from the haunted room, locking the door behind her.
In a moment a dozen servants were about them, and into their astonished ears Hester poured her story while vainly trying to restore her lady.
Great was the dismay and intense the unwillingness of anyone to obey when Hester ordered the men to search the room again, for she was the first to regain her self-possession.
"Where's Paul?
He's the heart of a man, boy though he is," she said angrily as the men hung back.
"He's not here.