old of the door. Rising
hastily to ask if she were ill, he stopped half way across the room,
for, with a thrill of apprehension and surprise, he saw that she was
asleep. Her eyes were open, fixed and vacant, her face reposeful, her
breathing regular, and every sense apparently wrapt in the profoundest
unconsciousness. Fearful of awakening her too suddenly, Moor stood
motionless, yet full of interest, for this was his first experience of
somnambulism, and it was a strange, almost an awful sight, to witness
the blind obedience of the body to the soul that ruled it.

For several minutes she remained where she first appeared. Then, as if
the dream demanded action, she stooped, and seemed to take some object
from a chair beside the door, held it an instant, kissed it softly and
laid it down. Slowly and steadily she went across the room, avoiding all
obstacles with the unerring instinct that often leads the sleepwalker
through dangers that appall his waking eyes, and sat down in the great
chair he had left, leaned her cheek upon its arm, and rested tranquilly
for several minutes. Soon the dream disturbed her, and lifting her head,
she bent forward, as if addressing or caressing some one seated at her
feet. Involuntarily her husband smiled; for often when they were alone
he sat there reading or talking to her, while she played with his hair,
likening its brown abundance to young Milton's curling locks in the
picture overhead. The smile had hardly risen when it was scared away,
for Sylvia suddenly sprung up with both hands out, crying in a voice
that rent the silence with its imploring energy--

"No, no, you must not speak! I will not hear you!"

Her own cry woke her. Consciousness and memory returned together, and
her face whitened with a look of terror, as her bewildered eyes showed
her not Warwick, but her husband. This look, so full of fear, yet so
intelligent, startled Moor more than the apparition or the cry had done,
for a conviction flashed into his mind that some unsuspected trouble had
been burdening Sylvia, and was now finding vent against her will.
Anxious to possess himself of the truth, and bent on doing so, he veiled
his purpose for a time, letting his unchanged manner reassure and
compose her.

"Dear child, don't look so lost and wild. You are quite safe, and have
only been wandering in your sleep. Why, Mrs. Macbeth, have you murdered
some one, that you go crying out in this uncanny way, frightening me as
mu