A soiled moonbeam fell on the floor, and filled the place around it with an ancient, dream-like light, which seemed to work strangely on my brain,—filling it, too, as if it were but a sleepy deserted house, haunted by old dreams and memories. Recollecting myself, I re-entered my room, but the candles were both flickering in the sockets, and I was compelled to trust to the moonlight for guidance. I easily reached the foot of the staircase, and began to ascend: not a board creaked, not a banister shook—the whole seemed as solid as rock. I was compelled to grope, for here was no moonlight—only the light, through one window, of the moonlit sky and air. Finding at last no more stairs to ascend, I groped my way on, in some trepidation, I confess; for how should I find my way back? But then the worst result likely to ensue was, that I should have to spend the night without knowing where; for with the first glimmer of morning, I should be able to return to my room. At length, after wandering about, in and out of rooms, my hand fell on the latch of a door, on opening which, I entered a long corridor, with many windows on one side. Broad strips of moonlight lay slantingly across the narrow floor, with regular intervals of shade. I started, and my heart grew thick, for I thought I saw a movement somewhere—I could neither tell where, nor of what: I only seemed to have been aware of motion. I stood in the first shadow, and gazed, but saw nothing. I sped across the stream of light to the next shadow, and stood again, looking with fearful fixedness of gaze towards the far end of the corridor. Suddenly a white form glimmered and vanished. I crossed to the next shadow—again a glimmer and a vanishing, but nearer. Nerving myself with all my strength, I ceased my stealthy motion, and went straight forward, slowly but steadily. A tall form, apparently of a woman, dressed in a long white loose robe, emerged into one of the streams of light, threw its arms over its head, gave a wild cry—which, notwithstanding its wildness and force, sounded as if muffled by many intervening folds, either of matter or space—and fell at full length along the moonlight track. In the midst of the thrill of agony which shook me at the cry, as a sudden wind thrills from head to foot the leaves of a tree, I rushed forward, and kneeling beside the prostrate figure, soon discovered that, however unearthly the scream which had preceded her fall, it was, in reality, the Lady Alice. Again I trembled, but the tremor was not the same as that which preceded. I saw the fact in a moment: the Lady Alice was a somnambulist. Startled by the noise of my advance, she had awaked; and the usual terror and fainting had followed. She was cold and motionless as death. What was to be done? If I called aloud, the probability was that no one would hear me; or if any one should hear,—but I need not follow the train of thoughts that passed through my mind, as I fruitlessly tried to recover the poor girl.