fearfully agitated.

"What has happened?" I asked; and again I caught at the hangings which
concealed the fearful thing that he had seen.

"Answer me!" Two words only, but tremendously uttered.

"She asked me if I liked the tower in the church-yard," I said.

"You told her what?"

"That I did like it."

"Has she seemed worried about anything?" and Mr. Axtell threw up a
window-sash, letting the cold March wind into this room of sickness. As
he did so, I lifted the folds that the wind rudely swayed. _Miss Axtell
was not there_.

He turned around. I stood speechless.

"How long have you been asleep?" he asked, coolly, as if nothing had
occurred.

"Not at all," I answered. Then I thought, "I must have slept, else she
could not have gone out without my knowing it."--"I heard the stroke of
four and of five," I said.

He looked up and down the street, only a little lighted by the feeble,
old, fading moon.