d.

Eleven o'clock had struck. The nurse, having placed the beverage
prepared by the doctor within reach of the patient, and locked the
door, was listening with terror to the comments of the servants in the
kitchen, and storing her memory with all the horrible stories which had
for some months past amused the occupants of the ante-chambers in the
house of the king's attorney. Meanwhile an unexpected scene was passing
in the room which had been so carefully locked. Ten minutes had elapsed
since the nurse had left; Valentine, who for the last hour had
been suffering from the fever which returned nightly, incapable of
controlling her ideas, was forced to yield to the excitement which
exhausted itself in producing and reproducing a succession and
recurrence of the same fancies and images. The night-lamp threw out
countless rays, each resolving itself into some strange form to her
disordered imagination, when suddenly by its flickering light Valentine
thought she saw the door of her library, which was in the recess by the
chimney-piece, open slowly, though she in vain listened for the sound of
the hinges on which it turned.

At any other time Valentine would have seized the silken bell-pull
and summoned assistance, but nothing astonished her in her present
situation. Her reason told her that all the visions she beheld were but
the children of her imagination, and the conviction was strengthened
by the fact that in the morning no traces remained of the nocturnal
phantoms, who disappeared with the coming of daylight. From behind the
door a human figure appeared, but the girl was too familiar with
such apparitions to be alarmed, and therefore only stared, hoping to
recognize Morrel. The figure advanced towards the bed and appeared to
listen with profound attention. At this moment a ray of light glanced
across the face of the midnight visitor.

"It is not he," she murmured, and waited, in the assurance that this was
but a dream, for the man to disappear or assume some other form. Still,
she felt her pulse, and finding it throb violently she remembered that
the best method of dispelling such illusions was to drink, for a draught
of the beverage prepared by the doctor to allay her fever seemed to
cause a reaction of the brain, and for a short time she suffered less.
Valentine therefore reached her hand towards the glass, but as soon
as her trembling arm left the bed the apparition advanced more quickly
towards her, and approach