I met her hasty look with a smile which it was too dark for her to see, and a cheerful good evening which I presume fell with anything but a cheerful sound upon her ears.
"It is a lovely evening," I cried. "Have you been admiring the sunset?"
"Ah, so much!" was her quick reply, and she began to saunter in slowly. But I knew she left her thoughts out there with that mysterious grave.
12 m.
Another midnight adventure! Late as it is, I must put it down, for I cannot sleep, and to-morrow will bring its own story.
I had gone to bed, but not to sleep. The anxieties under which I now labor, the sense of mystery which pervades the whole house, and the secret but ever-present apprehension of some impending catastrophe, which has followed me ever since these women came into the house, lay heavily on my mind, and prevented all rest. The change of room may also have added to my disturbance. I am wedded to old things, old ways, and habitual surroundings. I was not at home in this small and stuffy apartment, with its one narrow window and wretched accommodations. Nor could I forget near what it lay, nor rid myself of the horror which its walls gave me whenever I realized, as I invariably did at night, that only a slight partition separated me from the secret chamber, with its ghastly memories and ever to be remembered horrors.
I was lying, then, awake, when some impulse—was it a magnetic one?—caused me to rise and look out of the window. I did not see anything unusual—not at first—and I drew back. But the impulse returned, and I looked again, and this time perceived among the shadows of the trees something stirring in the garden, though what I could not tell, for the night was unusually dark, and my window very poorly situated for seeing.
But that there was something there was enough, and after another vain attempt to satisfy myself as to its character, I dressed and went out into the hall, determined to ascertain if any outlet to the house was open.
I did not take a light, for I know the corridors as I do my own hand. But I almost wished I had as I sped from door to door and window to window; for the events which had blotted my house with mystery were beginning to work upon my mind, and I felt afraid, not of my shadow, for I could not see it, but of my step, and the great gulfs of darkness that were continually opening before my eyes.