Nothing but that.' Miss Haredale stood beside her chair, regarding her with silent pity.
She remained for a little time quite still; then rose and turned to Mr Haredale, who had sat down in his easy chair, and was contemplating her with fixed attention.
The tale connected with the mansion borne in mind, it seemed, as has been already said, the chosen theatre for such a deed as it had known.
The room in which this group were now assembled--hard by the very chamber where the act was done--dull, dark, and sombre; heavy with worm-eaten books; deadened and shut in by faded hangings, muffling every sound; shadowed mournfully by trees whose rustling boughs gave ever and anon a spectral knocking at the glass; wore, beyond all others in the house, a ghostly, gloomy air.

Nor were the group assembled there, unfitting tenants of the spot.

The widow, with her marked and startling face and downcast eyes; Mr Haredale stern and despondent ever; his niece beside him, like, yet most unlike, the picture of her father, which gazed reproachfully down upon them from the blackened wall; Barnaby, with his vacant look and restless eye; were all in keeping with the place, and actors in the legend.

Nay, the very raven, who had hopped upon the table and with the air of some old necromancer appeared to be profoundly studying a great folio volume that lay open on a desk, was strictly in unison with the rest, and looked like the embodied spirit of evil biding his time of mischief.
'I scarcely know,' said the widow, breaking silence, 'how to begin.

You will think my mind disordered.' 'The whole tenor of your quiet and reproachless life since you were last here,' returned Mr Haredale, mildly, 'shall bear witness for you.