Seen and Unseen

to the Swedish Consul at Gottenburg. One of the sisters of this gentleman was married to an

of title) and her Egyptian necklace. A present had been made to her (I think on her marriage) of a very

tomb, for the owner of the necklace appeared one night by the lady's bedside, and war

lace in her dressing-case, and fondly trus

locked it up in a tin case, doubtless with a secret smile at his noble client's superstitions. But Nemesis lay in wait for him, and the last thing Mr Romilly had heard upon the subject was that the lawyer himself was made so exceedingl

a, and speaking of her relation, who had married a Swedish wife, and whom I

cards" for me, with astonishing success, and told me she had learnt the mystic lore from an old Finnish nurse, who had been brought over from Finland by her own Swe

a, and in St Petersburg I had my first

y in the city, a German who had lived the

er beautiful Parisian costumes, and to take orders as usual from the Russian Royal Family and Ladies of the Court. He also mentioned the Frenchwoman's re

ng the heat very oppressive. It was almost the end of June at the time. Getting out of bed to open my window still farther, I ga

d anything so ghastly nor so blood-curdling either before or since. For a moment it seemed that one must be dreaming. Wh

turned the key in the lock. My next thought was for my companion-the Miss Greenlow of

go into the passage, not realising the danger in the moment of waking, and might fall into the murderer's hands.

and the scared inmates rushing to and fro, so there

her a good shake at last, finding knocks and calls of no avail; but she only turned over sleepily,

passage. My room was a corner one, exactly at the head of the wide staircase; to the left-hand side, for anyone mounting the stairs. Exact

night, for small groups were gathered together at various points along the corridor, and at every

lking in a hushed whisper to a musjig-in the usual red coat.

of the shrieks we had heard, he said at o

ory. But nothing more could be got out of him, so I dismissed him impatiently, saying:

wide staircase I have described as passing close to my room was thence continued upward to the next floor. In my dream or vision I saw distinctly a woman in a white nightgown, with dark hair streaming down her back, rushing up this second flight of stairs in the most distraught and reckless fashion. In one hand she held a knife, and was trying to stab herself with it, as a musjig-in crimson c

r curtly to him: "You need not have troubled to make up that f

o kill herself, and rushed up to the next floor with a knife in

, but left the room as quickly as possible, looking scared, and certainly left the impression

table and dependable courier, Küntze, gav

rs for the day-Miss Greenlow being present-a

away with all that money? Now this frightful misfortune has happened to her, and no one knows if

mption of profound indifference. Of course, no self-respecting person, having calmly slept through such a tragedy, could be otherwise than indifferent

nfortunately, she had set fire to a sleeve, which at once burned up, and in a few moments she was enveloped in flames, owing to the flimsy material she wore. Then the shrieks began which had so thrilled our nerves. A Russian gentleman, sleeping near her, was awakened

re freak of imagination during my troubled sleep. In the face of Küntze's quiet and detailed statement I could only agree with her, and so the matter rested for some months. The poor woman meanwhile remained in the hospital, and her son and daughter were tele

low took the steamer for Hull, and I went up into the Dovre Feld Mount

ously vivid and yet inaccurate vision, and we discussed the latter in quite an S.P.R. spirit! We we

rned to England a week or two before rec

rs, and I see that poor woman you told me about, has just

uicide after all, so yo

th, little realising what the torture would be. It seems that she waited till the middle of the night you described, and then covered her whole body with oil, and set fire to it! This accounts, of course, for the horrible shrieks you heard. In her awful agony she seized a knife-that she had either secreted or found in her room-rushed out into the passage in a blaze, and when the musjig tried to stop her, she ran from him, and attempted to st

down to Moscow from Petersburg, and he

in the distance. My room was divided into two unequal parts, separated from each other by a door which was, during the hot season, thrown wide open and fastened back securely. Betw

he wardrobe I have mentioned. Then, after looking out of the windows on the fast diminishing crowd below in the square, I w

utside indicated the half hour. Scarcely had the reverberation ceased when I heard cautious sounds in the corridor, which gave me a good fright, and made me regret the silence I had found so irksome. The outer door of my room was quietly being opened, creaking on its hinges in the most ordinary and commonplace way, but evidently opening under a very wary hand. "Then I could not have locked it after all!" And yet I felt so convinced that I had done so! Certainly I had intended to do so on my first night in a strange hotel! The best I could hope was that some o

t could he be doing or waiting for? My comforting supposition of a mistake in the number of his room, made by an innocent guest, could not be stretched wide enough to account for the long pause. Perhaps it was some robber lurking about t

d gave me courage-the courage of desperation-to strike a match and light my candle before starting on a tour of discovery. The middle door was fastened back, as I had found it when taking possession of the room. In any case, that was not the door which had been opened-the sound came from the outer door. I must find out if anyone were hiding in the little dressing-room; and in any case, I must lock the outer door, which I had felt so certain I had locked on comi

preparatory to locking it, and found that it was securely locked already, just as I had

moment strike me that the noise came from another quarter, and that the footsteps were still to be explained. I was only too thankful to find the barest apology of an explanation

s tread, the same sound of the outer door creaking slowly on its hinges-there was nothing in the least uncanny about it pe

on a wild-goose chase. "It must have been that wardrobe door after all! As to the footsteps, I don't know and I

d, and in a few minutes fell into a deep sle

turned round to convince myself of the truth of my theory about the wardrobe door. To my infinite astoni

ine big room for a much less desirable one that morning, and made so

g companion, she showed far more interest in my adventure t

get any sort of explanation of the mystery; for although not at al

for its intrinsic interest, and because I am personally convinced that she

essage" was to the

k. He had opened the door very carefully, trusting he should find the lady asleep; but, unfortunately, she was not only wide awake, but extremely annoyed by his late return and the state in which he had come back to her. A desperate quarrel had ensued, and getting frightened by his violence, she seized his rifle, giving him a blow

uld be more reasonable for the lady to haunt the room, and n

ries it is the victim who appears-determined to enac

by, that I had slept in the room o

roboration of such a story. Two small poin

highly improbable. We learned, however, through a few discreet questions later, that this particular hotel had been in exis

unted my experience without a word of exaggeration,

se, just worth the paper it was written