usion, and not without
good grounds, for she managed indirectly to learn that Edward's black
horse had actually been for a day and part of a night in the castle
stables, just at the time of her brother's supposed visit. The horse had
gone, and, as she argued, the rider must have departed with it.

This point being so far settled, I felt a little less uncomfortable:
when being one day alone in my bedroom, I happened to look out from
the window, and, to my unutterable horror, I beheld, peering through
an opposite casement, my cousin Edward's face. Had I seen the evil one
himself in bodily shape, I could not have experienced a more sickening
revulsion.

I was too much appalled to move at once from the window, but I did so
soon enough to avoid his eye. He was looking fixedly into the narrow
quadrangle upon which the window opened. I shrank back unperceived, to
pass the rest of the day in terror and despair. I went to my room early
that night, but I was too miserable to sleep.

At about twelve o'clock, feeling very nervous, I determined to call
my cousin Emily, who slept, you will remember, in the next room, which
communicated with mine by a second door. By this private entrance I
found my way into her chamber, and without difficulty persuaded her to
return to my room and sleep with me. We accordingly lay down together,
she undressed, and I with my clothes on, for I was every moment walking
up and down the room, and felt too nervous and miserable to think of
rest or comfort.

Emily was soon fast asleep, and I lay awake, fervently longing for the
first pale gleam of morning, reckoning every stroke of the old clock
with an impatience which made every hour appear like six.

It must have been about one o'clock when I thought I heard a slight
noise at the partition-door between Emily's room and mine, as if caused
by somebody's turning the key in the lock. I held my breath, and the
same sound was repeated at the second door of my room--that which opened
upon the lobby--the sound was here distinctly caused by the revolution
of the bolt in the lock, and it was followed by a slight pressure upon
the door itself, as if to ascertain the security of the lock.

The person, whoever it might be, was probably satisfied, for I heard
the old boards of the lobby creak and strain, as if under the weight
of somebody moving cautiously over them. My sense of hearing became
unnaturally, almost painfully acute. I suppose the imagination added