reathing rose and fell rapidly and
full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of strangulation,
supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my senses
left me and I became unconscious.

It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable
state.

My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had
grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the
languor which I had long felt began to display itself in my countenance.

My father asked me often whether I was ill; but, with an obstinacy which
now seems to me unaccountable, I persisted in assuring him that I was
quite well.

In a sense this was true. I had no pain, I could complain of no bodily
derangement. My complaint seemed to be one of the imagination, or the
nerves, and, horrible as my sufferings were, I kept them, with a morbid
reserve, very nearly to myself.

It could not be that terrible complaint which the peasants called the
oupire, for I had now been suffering for three weeks, and they were
seldom ill for much more than three days, when death put an end to
their miseries.

Carmilla complained of dreams and feverish sensations, but by no means
of so alarming a kind as mine. I say that mine were extremely alarming.
Had I been capable of comprehending my condition, I would have invoked
aid and advice on my knees. The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was
acting upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed.

I am going to tell you now of a dream that led immediately to an odd
discovery.

One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, I
heard one, sweet and tender, and at the same time terrible, which said,
"Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin." At the same time a
light unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Carmilla, standing, near the
foot of my bed, in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her
feet, in one great stain of blood.

I wakened with a shriek, possessed with the one idea that Carmilla was
being murdered. I remember springing from my bed, and my next
recollection is that of standing on the lobby, crying for help.

Madame and Mademoiselle came scurrying out of their rooms in alarm; a
lamp burned always on the lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned the
cause of my terror.

I insisted on our knocking at Carmilla's door. Our knocking was
unanswered.

It soon became a pounding and an uproar. We shrieked her name, but all
was vain.

We