I was about to leave the chair to pick up the book when a flash of lightning, which came in through the slits in the shutter, almost took my sight away, and a peal of thunder followed sounding at first remote, but coming with every discharge nearer and nearer, until it seemed to pour forth its full power directly over the house. Then, as if its force were spent, it passed with a faint rumbling and muttering, and finally died away. I expected to hear the rain falling, but none fell, and the room had become so sultry that I decided to open the window, in the hope of an inrush of cooler air.
Just as I had placed my hand on the bar that fastened the shutter, I thought I heard a long, deep-drawn sigh. I turned and looked about, but saw nothing, and I felt vexed with myself for allowing my imagination to play tricks with me. Again I heard the sigh, and I must confess something like a creepy feeling came over me. I retired from the window without opening it, went back to my chair, and taking up my revolver sat in such a position as to be able to keep the whole room under observation; but I saw nothing, and except the ticking of the clock and the chiming of the quarters, heard nothing.
At length it struck two. Again I saw the eyes peering at me from the corner opposite to that from which I had dislodged them, at the far end of the wall. Instinctively I pointed the revolver at them, and would, I believe, have fired but that a low thrill of laughter fell upon my ear.
I started as if I had been hit. Seated at the little card table of which I have spoken was a woman, beautifully dressed, whose face was concealed by a large fan. Her elbow rested on the table, and her arm, bare to shoulder from wrist, was circled by a bracelet of emeralds and diamonds. A ring was on one of her fingers. It was an opal set in brilliants. I could see a coil of hair above the fan which the lady flirted lightly, and evidently her head was bent the better to conceal her face.
I took all this in at a glance, and for a second was spell-bound. I dropped my hand and the revolver fell from it to the floor. Then her head was swiftly raised, there was the gleam of a white forehead—a flash of wondrous eyes, such eyes as I have never seen, such as I know I shall never see in this life again. Their lustre was simply indescribable, and they possessed a mysterious attraction that seemed to draw my soul through breathless lips. I was divided between desire and undefinable fear. Perhaps it was owing to this conflict of emotions that my senses became confused. I had no doubt but that I was still sitting in the chair gazing at the bewitching apparition, and yet it seemed as if I were looking at myself or my double advancing over the floor, and finally kneeling at the feet of the lady. But the advancing figure, like me in every other respect, was attired as a Spanish gallant of the sixteenth century, and then the recollection flashed on me that I had appeared in a somewhat similar costume at a fancy dress ball a year or two before, and I found myself engaged in that curious yet familiar mental struggle of one who, escaping from a dream, questions himself as to whether he be dreaming.
Suddenly a lightning flash, more vivid than any that had preceded it, was followed by a roll of thunder almost deafening. I could no longer doubt but that I was awake. The lightning had so dazzled me that for a second I no longer saw anything, but as the last faint echo of the thunder died away I saw myself or my other self kneeling at the feet of the lady.
I made an effort to cry out, but I was like one in a nightmare; my voice refused to utter any cry, and then in accents that seemed to melt into my soul I heard the words:
“Then you have come at last, life of my soul?”
“Did you doubt it, dearest of the dear?”