t importance, of very deep concernment to you and to me.'

I fixed my eyes upon him to discern, if possible, whether the
announcement caused him any uneasiness; but no symptom of any such
feeling was perceptible.

'Well, my dear,' said he, 'this is no doubt a very grave preface, and
portends, I have no doubt, something extraordinary. Pray let us have it
without more ado.'

He took a chair, and seated himself nearly opposite to me.

'My lord,' said I, 'I have seen the person who alarmed me so much a
short time since, the blind lady, again, upon last night.' His face,
upon which my eyes were fixed, turned pale; he hesitated for a moment,
and then said:

'And did you, pray, madam, so totally forget or spurn my express
command, as to enter that portion of the house from which your promise,
I might say your oath, excluded you?--answer me that!' he added
fiercely.

'My lord,' said I, 'I have neither forgotten your COMMANDS, since such
they were, nor disobeyed them. I was, last night, wakened from my sleep,
as I lay in my own chamber, and accosted by the person whom I have
mentioned. How she found access to the room I cannot pretend to say.'

'Ha! this must be looked to,' said he, half reflectively; 'and pray,'
added he, quickly, while in turn he fixed his eyes upon me, 'what did
this person say? since some comment upon her communication forms, no
doubt, the sequel to your preface.'

'Your lordship is not mistaken,' said I; 'her statement was so
extraordinary that I could not think of withholding it from you. She
told me, my lord, that you had a wife living at the time you married me,
and that she was that wife.'

Lord Glenfallen became ashy pale, almost livid; he made two or three
efforts to clear his voice to speak, but in vain, and turning suddenly
from me, he walked to the window. The horror and dismay which, in the
olden time, overwhelmed the woman of Endor when her spells unexpectedly
conjured the dead into her presence, were but types of what I felt when
thus presented with what appeared to be almost unequivocal evidence of
the guilt whose existence I had before so strongly doubted.

There was a silence of some moments, during which it were hard to
conjecture whether I or my companion suffered most.

Lord Glenfallen soon recovered his self-command; he returned to the
table, again sat down and said:

'What you have told me has so astonished me, has unfolded such a tissue
of motiveless guilt, and in a quart