The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-01-30
lConelndk4 fyoN PaRe Thret.l

k X the fl pod of moonlight which poured into the room through bo,h ner windows
 Fancy a stream Of still moonlight wind-swept, bteeze-rvff1ed imagine it vibrating, troubled, and then rrppling it self slowing into rest again No other words will give 'he impression conveyed to Pl'icnce's mind, as she sat thus upright in bed gazing into the whi:e radiance.
 The sense of some unseen and awful presence for the moment overcame her {; she bowed her head into her hands, hid" ing her eyes as one might in an act of wo' ship
 Oaly for one moment, however. The next with something like prayer on her lios, she had sprung rom he bed thrown on her dressing gosn, with the feeling strong upon her that she WAS bidden to go so nowhere, to do some hing
 But where what? she asked herself as she went with bt,e, unsteady feet to- ward the door S3e 3ened it wide, went outside into the corridor, all her senses merging into one that oi Il t-ning
 Here, on the passage and staircases, the darkness eened to lie he wy folds, the silence to m Ake i'sell felt Not even the scamoer of aR arCe | rat in the walnscofed walls nor the chirp of sing ing cricket, fl twed the stiffness.
 E .ck into her n"onht room the girl went ag in, threw open her window, and leaned out Perhaps 1t m,sht be some where in the desolate garuen 'Hat help of some sort was needed by suff ring fel- low creature
 The court of the grim K ng Death himself she had called 1t Tn fancy that night, as she looked out into the misty gloom. Now. with this white moonlight outlining and transfguring the wilderness of ragged t'ees, StalwArt weeds, broken and haf-ef.ced paths, shs ( uld imagine it rather the dreamland of K ng Deaths court, the embodiment and ptesentment of the fancies of the long-ago dead, as in their mystic visions they recalled dimly the lite they had lived out on earth. Any thing more weird and uneanhlike than this tant4stically forlorn garden and or chard could scarcely be imagined
 Into it's tangled depths Pluence's eye pierced here, there, every where, searchlng t'r she knew not whtt sCene II might be ot horror or of necessity She leaned far out of her window, looking down on the m >ssy. ill-paved terrace She turned her head to the left. No there was no sign or sound of human life only the pale, rip bling, silent moonlight everywhere trans forming the commonplAce into the poetic. She turned her head to the right leaning well out to get full view of the frontage of the house. and then-hex heart seemed to stand still, her warm blood to turn to ice in her veins for there walking along the srrcy ledge beneath the win dows, showed in the white moon- light the dark figure of manl
 Exed out by Its own shadow up the front of the house to twice it's length, it showed like some gigantic and grotesque signal hung out between the white earth and the night.blue sky. Little by little, as the figure slowly advanced, she made out that it was hatless and b ,otless, that it was feeling with one hand as though for he windows of the house as it came along. And was it-could it he possible yes, it was none other than Frank Char teris, her uncle's guest of overnight.
 For moment wonder swamped her power of thought. Then a sadden, ter. rible suspicion flashed into her br lin he must be walking in his sleep. His slow, automatic, yet withal dreamily uncertain method of procedure proclaimed the fact; and mo cover, no other explanation of the mystery was possible.
 His brain, weakened with over-pres- sure, and at the same moment in a ieb- rile and representative condition, had grasped and held with tenacity the latest idea presented to it; and here was he acting out with sealed senses what would have been to heal,hily minded person nothing more than troubled dream.
 Great heavens A sloplng sheli barely fourteen inches wide, and thirty feet from the level of the ground A possible false step and then an awful death All this rushed at one beat through Patiences brain, folio we'd naturally enough by the eager queseion-how was he to be saved, with not ladder at hand, not soul in the house save herself and Uncle Rlch- ard, and he, most probably at this hour, locked in his first and heaviest sleep?
 Instinct, or qaick imagination, must have answered the question, for experi- eDCeS of such cases she had none
 It occurred to her how at times the lives of lunatics had been saved by persons quick to seize upon and fall in with their whim of the moment What was the fantastic whim at this moment at work in the sleep-walker's brain Most probably the exploring of the bricked-up chamber from the outer side The feeble. gropipg movement of his hand up the front of the house, his half pause at the third win dew of the room he had occupied, seemed to suggest the idea. Very well, then, let him but find that window open
 Here she cut her thought ia half by running swiftly from the room to the hid den doorway in the corridor.
 "Uncle Richard Uncle Richard T" she calls loudly as she goes. And Uncle Richard Uncle Richard ' calls back the hollow corners, bare walls and rafters to her, till her cry dies away in distant gloom.
 Putting all the strength of her body into her fingers she manages to push on one side the bug picture of the startled horse