But as his eye ran over the objects to which it had become accustomed during the last days, and which were now indistinctly visible in the glimmering darkness of a fine summer night, he became fully satisfied that he had been indeed asleep; and with a muttered prayer, he settled himself down again on the pillow, and composed himself to sleep once more. He had not slept, however, above half an hour before the same painful symptoms recurred; and after even a longer and more agonizing struggle than the first, he again woke, panting, horror-stricken, pale and almost paralyzed with superstitious terror. “It was!” he gasped, “it was—it must have been reality. I saw her, as I did last night, tangible, face to face; but, oh God! what a glare of horror in those beautiful blue eyes—what a gory spot on that smooth, white brow—what agony—what supplication in every lovely feature. And he, he who dealt the blow—I could not see the face, but the dress, the figure, nay, the seat on horseback—great God! they were all mine own!” He paused for a long time, meditating deeply, and casting furtive glances around the large old-fashioned room, as though he expected to see some of the great heavy shadows which brooded in the dim angles and irregular recesses of the walls, detach themselves from their lurking places, in the guise of human forms disembodied, and come forth to confront him. After a while, however, his naturally strong intellect and characteristic audacity led him to discard the idea of supernatural influence in the appalling vision, which had now twice so cruelly disturbed him. Still, so great had been the suffering and torture of his mind during the conflict of the sleeping body and the sleepless intellect, that he actually dreaded the return of slumber, lest that dread phantom should return with it; and he therefore exerted himself to keep awake, and to arm his mind against the insidious stealing on of sleep, from very fear of what should follow. But the very efforts which he made to banish the inclination, wearied the mind, and induced what he would most avoid; and within an hour he was again unconscious of all external sights and sounds, again terribly alive to those inward sensations which had already terrified him almost beyond endurance. This time the trance was shorter, but from the symptoms which appeared on his features, fiercer and stronger than before; nor, as before, when he awoke, did the impression pass away which had been made on him before his eyes were opened. No; as he started up erect, and gazed wildly, scarce as yet half awake, around him, the first thing that met, or seemed to meet, his staring eyes, was a gray, misty shadow, standing relieved by a dark mass of gloom in the farthest angle of the chamber. Gradually, as he stared at it with a fascinated gaze, which, had it been to save his life, he could not have withdrawn, the shape, if shape it were, drew nearer, nearer, with a slow, gliding, ghastly motion.