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 have penetrated it, and discovered the cause of the sound that had alarmed her; but all again was profoundly still, and she at last began to think it was either the wind growling through the casements, she had heard, or some of those unaccountable noises, so common in old houses; such, she recollected, as had often startled her at the chateau of the Countess de Merville.

Thus trying to tranquillize her mind, she was beginning to undress, when the powers of motion were suddenly suspended by a repetition of the sound which had so recently alarmed her—a sound she could no longer ascribe to the causes she had already done.

Deep and dreadful groans now pierced her ear—groans which seemed bursting from the bosom of misery and despair, and which by degrees rose to a yell, intermingled with sighs and sobs.