assailed me;--a prophetic instinct
that some terrible misfortune menaced me; an eager and overpowering
anxiety to get back to my own room without loss of time. I turned and
ran blindly along the dark cypress alley, every dusky clump of flowers
that rose blackly in the borders making my heart each moment cease to
beat. The echoes of my own footsteps seemed to redouble and assume the
sounds of unknown pursuers following fast upon my track. The boughs of
lilac-bushes and syringas, that here and there stretched partly across
the walk, seemed to have been furnished suddenly with hooked hands that
sought to grasp me as I flew by, and each moment I expected to behold
some awful and impassable barrier fall across my track and wall me up
forever.

At length I reached the wide entrance. With a single leap I sprang up
the four or five steps that formed the stoop, and dashed along the hall,
up the wide, echoing stairs, and again along the dim, funereal corridors
until I paused, breathless and panting, at the door of my room. Once so
far, I stopped for an instant and leaned heavily against one of the
panels, panting lustily after my late run. I had, however, scarcely
rested my whole weight against the door, when it suddenly gave way, and
I staggered in head-foremost. To my utter astonishment the room I had
left in profound darkness was now a blaze of light. So intense was the
illumination that, for a few seconds while the pupils of my eyes were
contracting under the sudden change, I saw absolutely nothing save the
dazzling glare. This fact in itself, coming on me with such utter
suddenness, was sufficient to prolong my confusion, and it was not until
after several minutes had elapsed that I perceived the room was not only
illuminated, but occupied. And such occupants! Amazement at the scene
took such possession of me that I was incapable of either moving or
uttering a word. All that I could do was to lean against the wall, and
stare blankly at the strange picture.

It might have been a scene out of Faublas, or Gramont's Memoirs, or
happened in some palace of Minister Foucque.

Round a large table in the centre of the room, where I had left a
student-like litter of books and papers, were seated half a dozen
persons. Three were men and three were women. The table was heaped with
a prodigality of luxuries. Luscious eastern fruits were piled up in
silver filigree vases, through whose meshes their glowing rinds shone in
the contrasts