Miss Delane, who had been seized with a strange restlessness which she could not shake off, then went into the hall, and was about to speak to one of Major R----'s nieces, who was also on a visit there, when her attention was arrested by the sound of a heavy carriage lumbering along the high road, from the direction of Montreal, at a very great rate. It being now nearly ten o'clock, an hour when there was usually very little traffic, she was somewhat surprised, her astonishment increasing by leaps and bounds when she heard the wheels crunching on the gravel drive, and the carriage rapidly approaching the house.
"Surely, it is too late----" she began, but was cut short by the Major, who, abruptly pushing past her to the front door, just as the carriage drew up, swung it to, and, in trembling haste, locked, and barred, and bolted it.
Footsteps were then heard hurriedly ascending the steps to the front door, and immediately afterwards a series of loud rat-tat-tats, although, as everyone instantly remembered, there was no knocker on the door, the Major having had it removed many years ago, for a reason he either could not or would not explain.
Startled almost out of their senses by the noise, the whole household had in a few seconds assembled in the hall, and they now knelt, huddled together, whilst the Major in a voice which, despite the fact that it was raised to its highest pitch, could barely be heard above the furious and frenzied knocking, besought the Almighty to protect them.
As he continued praying the rat-tats gradually grew feebler and feebler, until they finally ceased, after which the footsteps were once again heard on the stone steps, this time descending, and the carriage drove away. It was not, however, until the reverberations of the wheels could no longer be heard that the Major rose from his knees. Then, bidding his household do likewise, he insisted that they should at once retire, without speaking a word, to their rooms; and forbade them ever to mention the matter to him again.
As soon as Miss Delane and the Major's nieces were in their bedroom--they shared a room between them--they ran to the window and looked out. The sky was quite clear now, and the moon was shining forth in all the splendour of its calm cold majesty; but the grounds and road beyond were quite deserted; not a vestige of any person or carriage could be seen anywhere, and, on the morrow, when they hastened downstairs and examined the gravel, there were no indications whatever of any wheels.