In this uncertainty, seeing a flight of stairs in one corner of the room, I darted up them, without reflecting a moment upon what might be the consequences. But what evil could happen to me more horrid than that I was fleeing? I might stumble into a lady's chamber and throw her into hysterics, or I might find myself at the bedside of some valiant personage, sleeping with a brace of pistols under his pillow, the contents of which he might transfer to my body. But such catastrophes had now lost their terrors: it was all one to I. D. Dawkins, as I had said to my uncle Wilkins. I could receive no addition to my woes, go whither and do whatsoever I might. I rushed up the stairs, therefore, and entered a chamber, where a tallow candle, burning all on one side, stood flaring on a little table, among vials, gallipots, and other furniture of a sick chamber, throwing a dim and spectral light on a bed near to which it stood. I cast my eyes upon the bed, and perceived I had nothing to fear, either from timorous ladies or nervous gentlemen. CHAPTER XXIV. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DEAD-CHAMBER.--THE DIRGE OF A WEALTHY PARENT. Upon that couch lay the ghastly spectacle of a human corse, stiff and cold. It was that of an old man, and I thought at first that he slept; but, upon looking closer, I perceived that he had been dead for at least an hour; and it appeared as if he had died untended by friend or servant, for the bedclothes had been nearly tossed from the bed in his last convulsion, and now lay tumbled about his limbs and the floor, just as they had fallen. His features were greatly distorted, having an expression of rage upon them that was highly disagreeable to look on; yet I had a vague feeling that I had seen him before. While I was wondering who he could be, I perceived a paper clutched in his right hand; and, taking it to the light, the secret was at once revealed. It was a letter from my adorable Alicia to her father, dated that very evening, in which she gave him to understand, in the most romantic language in the world, that his opposition to her wishes in relation to her beloved Dawkins had broken her heart--that she could never think of marrying any one else (as if, indeed, the old gentleman ever wished her)--that she could not live without her Dawkins, and accordingly had made up her mind to fly with him afar from parental severity; and concluded by assuring him that "when he read those lines, penned by a grieved and determined, but still dutifully loving heart" (she said nothing of her fingers), "she would be in the arms of a lawful husband." There was appended a postscript, in which she expressed much contrition, hoped he would forgive her, and hinted that she would be of age in two months.