"After an hour or more waiting patiently by his bedside, not liking to leave the helpless old woman alone with so dangerous a companion (for I could not answer for any thing he might do in his frenzy), I thought that the remedies by which I hoped in some measure to subdue the fever, seemed beginning to take effect, and that I might leave him, promising to send all that was necessary, though fearing much that he had gone beyond all my power to restore him; and desiring that I might immediately be called back again, should he get worse instead of better, which I felt almost certain would be the case, I hastened homeward, glad enough to be leaving wretched huts and raving men, driving rain and windy hills, for a comfortable house, dry clothes, a warm fire, and a good dinner. I think I never saw such a fire in my life as the one that blazed up my chimney; it looked so wonderfully warm and bright, and there seemed an indescribable air of comfort about the room which I had never noticed before. One would have thought I should have enjoyed it all intensely after my wet ride, but throughout the whole evening, the scenes of the day would keep recurring to my mind with most uncomfortable distinctness, and it was in vain that I endeavored to forget it all in a book, one of my old favorites too; so at last I fairly gave up the attempt, as the hideous face would come continually between my eyes and an especially good passage; and I went off to bed heartily tired, and expecting sleep very readily to visit me. Nor was I disappointed: I was soon deep asleep, though my last thought was on the little valley I had left. How long this heavy and dreamless sleep continued, I can not tell, but gradually I felt consciousness returning, in the shape of the very thoughts with which I fell asleep, and at last I opened my eyes, thoroughly roused by a heavy blow at my window. I can not describe my horror, when, by the light of a moon struggling among the heavy surge-like clouds, I saw the very face, the face of _that_ man looking in at me through the casement, the eyes distended and the face pressed close to the glass. I started up in bed, to convince myself that I really was awake, and not suffering from some frightful dream; there it staid, perfectly moveless, its wide ghastly eyes fixed unwaveringly on mine, which, by a kind of fascination, became equally fixed and rigid, gazing upon the dreadful face, which alone without a body was visible at the window, unless an indefinable black shadow, that seemed to float beyond it, might be fancied into one. I can scarcely tell how long I so sat looking at it, but I remember something of a rushing sound, a feeling of relief, a falling exhausted back upon my pillow, and then I awoke in the morning ill and unrefreshed. I was ill at ease, and the first question I asked, on coming down stairs, was, whether any messenger had come to summon me to Wentford. A messenger had come, they