"Do as you please, sir," said Mrs. Wharton, "but if you should feel uncomfortable in the night, you've but to knock at my door, the next room to yours, and I will gladly make you up a bed in No. 12."

"No, thank you, Mrs. Wharton; I am much obliged to you all the same. I have no doubt that the Baron and I will be capital friends."

"Well, sir, I wish you a pleasant night of it, I am sure," said the housekeeper, as she handed me a candle. "Good-night, sir."

"Good-night, Mrs. Wharton."

I walked up stairs to the haunted chamber. Having reached the landing, I entered my room and locked myself in for the night. In spite of my forced levity, I must admit that I felt a certain feeling of awe come over me upon entering the chamber once occupied by the author of so many crimes. I could not but think that Mrs. Wharton herself thoroughly believed in what seemed to me a popular superstition, but the more I reflected on what she had told me of the Baron's crimes, the less ludicrous did the idea of the Baron's metempsychosis appear to me.

What, after all, was there ridiculous in a flea more than in any other hideous creature? The feeling of the ludicrous in my mind was supplanted by one of horror. "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy," I muttered. I could not make up my mind to go to rest immediately. In fact, I did not feel in the least sleepy. I busied myself in examining the room minutely to see if there were any trap-door or sliding panel; and, tapping all the walls, expected every moment to touch some spring and for some panel to fly back, discovering a secret staircase. I examined the bed and under the bed, but could discover nothing. The Baron's portrait hung over the mantelpiece. I lifted up the picture to see if there was any hole in the wall underneath, but there was nothing but good solid panel; nor could I in any part of the room discover anything suspicious. I partially undressed and seated myself in a large arm-chair in front of the Baron's portrait. I was extremely interested in the perusal of his features, and had no difficulty in believing all the atrocities attributed to the original. The more I gazed at it, the more it fascinated me. I could not take my eyes from it. Somehow or other the features seemed familiar to me; I fancied I had seen them somewhere. I tried to collect my thoughts. Where had I seen them before?Suddenly I recollected a horrible criminal, who had murdered a whole family and committed other heinous atrocities, and had been executed a year or two 

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