The moon had by this time arisen, and cast a feeble, ineffectual light through the mass of tangled foliage which curtained the large diamond-paned casements of the cottage, streaming in a dim, misty ray across the centre of the chamber. Directly in the middle of this pallid halo, as if it had been a silver glory, paused, or appeared to pause, that thin transparent form—so bodiless, indeed, it seemed, that the outlines of the things which stood beyond it, were visible, as if seen through a gauzy curtain. A cloud passed over the moon’s face, and all was gloom; yet still the boy’s eyes _felt_ the presence of that disembodied visitant, which they could now no longer distinguish in the darkness. At this moment, as if to add a real terror to that which, even if unreal, needed no addition, the cat, which hitherto had been sleeping undisturbedly by the warm ashes on the hearth, uttered an unusual plaintive cry, most unlike to the natural note of her species, whether of pleasure or of anger, and rushed at two or three long bounds, to the bed on which the boy was sitting up in voiceless horror. Her eyes glared in the darkness, like coals of livid fire, her bristles were set up like the quills of the porcupine, her tail was outspread, till it almost resembled a fox’s brush. The cloud drifted onward, and the moon shone out brighter than before; and there he still saw, that tall white shape, clearer, distincter, stronger than when he first beheld it. The cat cowered down upon the pillow by his side, with a low wailing cry of terror, her back, bristling in wrath but now, was humbly lowered, dread of something unnatural had quelled all her savage instincts. Clearer and clearer waxed the vision, and now he might mark the delicate symmetrical proportions of the figure, and now the pale white outlines of the lovely face. It _was_ Theresa Allan. Yet the fair features were set in a sort of rigid cataleptic horror, full of dread, full of agony and consternation; and the blue eyes glared, fixed and glassy, without speculation; and right in the centre of the brow there glowed, like a sanguine star, a great spot of gore. The thing seemed to raise its arm, and point with a gesture of majestic menace, right toward the terrified beholder. Then the white lips were parted with a slow circular distortion, showing the pearly teeth within, and——if a voice came forth from those ghastly lips, Jasper St. Aubyn knew it not, for he had sunk back on his pillow—if, indeed, he had ever, as he believed to the day of his death, raised himself up from it—in a deep trance, from which he passed into a dead, heavy, dreamless stupor, which continued undisturbed until the sun was high in the heavens, and the whole household were afoot, and busied about their usual avocations.