The door which led from the sleeping-chamber was then carefully shut and bolted, and the father and daughter remained both in a posture of anxious attention, the first with a stern, suspicious, anxious cast of countenance, and Janet with folded hands, and looks which seemed divided betwixt her desire to know the fortunes of her mistress, and her prayers to Heaven for her safety.

Anthony Foster seemed himself to have some idea of what was passing through his daughter's mind, for he crossed the apartment and took her anxiously by the hand, saying, "That is right--pray, Janet, pray; we have all need of prayers, and some of us more than others.

Pray, Janet--I would pray myself, but I must listen to what goes on within--evil has been brewing, love--evil has been brewing.
God forgive our sins, but Varney's sudden and strange arrival bodes us no good." Janet had never before heard her father excite or even permit her attention to anything which passed in their mysterious family; and now that he did so, his voice sounded in her ear--she knew not why--like that of a screech-owl denouncing some deed of terror and of woe.

She turned her eyes fearfully towards the door, almost as if she expected some sounds of horror to be heard, or some sight of fear to display itself.
All, however, was as still as death, and the voices of those who spoke in the inner chamber were, if they spoke at all, carefully subdued to a tone which could not be heard in the next.

At once, however, they were heard to speak fast, thick, and hastily; and presently after the voice of the Countess was heard exclaiming, at the highest pitch to which indignation could raise it, "Undo the door, sir, I command you!--undo the door!--I will have no other reply!" she continued, drowning with her vehement accents the low and muttered sounds which Varney was heard to utter betwixt whiles.