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288 to encourage the lady. I found her as I had left her.

“Make haste, my lads,” said I, “the lady is still conscious.”

“What lady, sir?” said the guard, coming towards me. “There was no one in the carriage you recollect, Mr. Frederick, but you and the poor gentleman. You told me to lock you in.”

“But there was a lady, I tell you, got in afterwards—there is a lady—here under our feet; help me to move these timbers, man.”

The man stared at me, as if he thought me insane; but helped to remove one or two spars, and she raised herself on her arm.

“Gently, gently, man,” said I. “You will let that fall on the lady’s head again. Can you rise now, madam?” and I held out my hand.

“My good sir—my dear sir—there is no one there,” said the guard, catching my outstretched arm. “By Heavens, I think he is gone mad! Mr. Frederick!”

“No one there—what do you mean?” said I, shaking him off. “You must be mad. Come, madam;" and as I touched her cold hand she rose to her feet, as if she cast the timber off her like water. “You will set her cloak on fire, man!” I exclaimed, rushing on the guard, who was waving his torch so close to us, I thought the light garment of my companion must catch the flame.

“New do’ee come away, sir—there’s nothing there—nothing but the broken timbers,” replied the man, soothingly. “I believe the poor gentleman’s head is turned,” he added to one of the other men.

A fearful sensation overpowered me—was she then invisible? By this time Charley was extricated, and with the assistance of one of the men, whom I retained to help me, we carried him to the station-house. The lady walked noiselessly by our side. I do not know if the other man was aware of her presence. I almost thought that Charley felt it, unconscious as he appeared, for the expression of his face changed as she came to his side. It was a mournful walk; but we reached the station-house at last, and placed him on one of the sofas in the waiting-room. The lady stood by his side, like a tall statue, still wrapped in her white cloak. She was still standing there when I came back from inquiring for the nearest doctor; one had been sent for, and was expected to arrive immediately.

“A doctor is coming,” I said; “perhaps we can do something meanwhile. Can you chafe his hands?”

“Is this likely to warm them?” she replied, softly, laying her icy hand for one moment on mine; the touch almost paralysed it.

“You are ill yourself!” I exclaimed. “What can I do? Rest yourself.”

“Rest. Oh, Heavens!” she answered, waving me away. “Do not think of me. I cannot rest; attend to your friend.”

The advice was good. I knelt down by Charley, loosened his cravat, and endeavoured to staunch the blood that flowed from the wound in his head. She stood at a little distance from us, her arms folded on her breast, and an expression of intense agony on her pale face. I was still busy with my friend, when I heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs outside: the door opened, and at the same moment a dreadful shriek rang through the air, and turning, I saw the lady had disappeared, and a stout, middle-aged man standing in the doorway. That dreadful shriek had penetrated even to Charley’s slumbering brain; he opened his eyes, and faintly asked where he was.

Meanwhile, the new comer, who proved to be the doctor, advanced hastily towards me, and in agitated tones inquired in the name of Heaven who the lady was?

“I know nothing of her," said I, “except that she travelled with us part of the way. Where can she be gone now?”

“Do not go. Do not go after her,” exclaimed Charley, faintly detaining me, as I was rushing from the room. “Is she gone? It must be about the time she disappeared before.”

In spite of his remonstrances, I, however, went out, and inquired of the people in the outer room which way the lady in the white cloak had gone? They all denied having seen any such lady either enter or go out, and even the man who had helped me to carry Charley, evidently thought I was delirious in talking of the lady who had walked by our side.

I returned to the waiting-room, where the doctor was binding up Charley’s wounds, and told him of my fruitless researches, and asked what he knew of her? He replied that he did not know her; but was struck by her likeness to a lady whom he had attended in that neighbourhood some years before, whose husband had been killed in a railway accident, not far from this very station.

“What became of the lady?" I asked.

“She died,” was the short answer.

I fancied I heard a moan run through the building as he spoke, but it might have been merely my excited fancy. He was not at first disposed to communication on the subject; but Charley’s hurts were severe; for some time he was under Dr. Healall’s treatment, and from him we at last gained the history of the lady whose mysterious likeness had disappeared so suddenly on his arrival with us. She had confided it to him on her death-bed.

It appeared she had married a rich cotton spinner, many years older than herself, and in order to save her favourite brother from disgrace and ruin, she had forged her husband’s name to cheques for an amount which freed her brother. The husband, however, had discovered the fraud: he put the police on the track of the brother, and carried her off with him, intending to take her to Glasgow, to confront her with the manager of the bank there on which the forgeries had been drawn. They seemed to have had a frightful quarrel in the railway carriage, he reproaching her with her dishonesty, and she fiercely upbraiding him with wishing to deliver her brother to justice.

“Sooner than you should succeed!” she cried in her passion, “may we never reach our journey’s end—may I rather see you dead at my feet!”

He started up, saying he would travel no longer in the same carriage with her, and thrust his head