ble. Call my state what you will, trance or catalepsy, I
know that I remained standing by the window utterly unconscious--dead,
mind and body--until the sun had set. Then I came to my senses again;
and then, when I opened my eyes, there was the apparition of Stephen
Monkton standing opposite to me, faintly luminous, just as it stands
opposite me at this very moment by your side."

"Was this before the news of the duel reached England?" I asked.

"_Two weeks before_ the news of it reached us at Wincot. And even when
we heard of the duel, we did not hear of the day on which it was
fought. I only found that out when the document which you have read was
published in the French newspaper. The date of that document, you will
remember, is February 22d, and it is stated that the duel was fought two
days afterward. I wrote down in my pocketbook, on the evening when I saw
the phantom, the day of the month on which it first appeared to me. That
day was the 24th of February."

He paused again, as if expecting me to say something. After the words he
had just spoken, what could I say? what could I think?

"Even in the first horror of first seeing the apparition," he went
on, "the prophecy against our house came to my mind, and with it the
conviction that I beheld before me, in that spectral presence, the
warning of my own doom. As soon as I recovered a little, I determined,
nevertheless, to test the reality of what I saw; to find out whether
I was the dupe of my own diseased fancy or not. I left the turret; the
phantom left it with me. I made an excuse to have the drawing-room at
the Abbey brilliantly lighted up; the figure was still opposite me. I
walked out into the park; it was there in the clear starlight. I went
away from home, and traveled many miles to the sea-side; still the tall
dark man in his death agony was with me. After this I strove against the
fatality no more. I returned to the Abbey, and tried to resign myself
to my misery. But this was not to be. I had a hope that was dearer to me
than my own life; I had one treasure belonging to me that I shuddered
at the prospect of losing; and when the phantom presence stood a warning
obstacle between me and this one treasure, this dearest hope, then my
misery grew heavier than I could bear. You must know what I am alluding
to; you must have heard often that I was engaged to be married?"

"Yes, often. I have some acquaintance myself with Miss Elmslie."

"You never can know