Chapter 14 THE FOURTEENTH

Sometimes, methinks, I hear the groans of ghosts,

Then hollow sounds and lamentable screams;

Then, like a dying echo from afar,

My mother's voice, that cries, "Wed not, Almeyda-

Forewanvd, Almeyda, marriage is thy crime."

DON SEBASTIAN.

The evening at Baldringham would have seemed of portentous and unendurable length, had it not b