Woodward was resolute, fearless--a sceptic, an infidel, a materialist--but here was a walking proposition in his presence which he could not solve, and which, up to that point, at least, had set all his theories at defiance.

His blood rose--he became annoyed at the strange silence of the being before him, but more still at the mysterious and tardy pace with which it seemed to precede and escape him.
[Illustration: PAGE 652-- I will follow it until morning] "I will follow it until morning," he said to himself, "or else I shall develop this startling enigma." At this moment his mysterious fellow-traveller, after having advanced as if there had not been such an individual as Woodward in existence, now stood; he was directly opposite the haunted house, and turning round, faced the tantalized and bewildered mortal.

The latter looked on him; his countenance was the countenance of the dead--of the sheeted dead, stretched out in the bloodless pallor which lies upon the face of vanished life--of existence that is no more, at least in flesh and blood.

Woodward approached him--for the thing had stood, as we have said, and permitted, him to come within a few yards from him.

His eyes were cold and glassy, and apparently without speculation, like those of a dead man open; yet, notwithstanding this, Woodward felt that they looked at him, if not into him.
"Speak," said he, "speak; who or what are you ?" He received no reply; but in a few seconds the apparition, if it were such, put his hand into his bosom, and, pulling out a dagger, which gleamed with a faint and visionary light, he directed it as if to his (Woodward's) heart.