Oh! how long that room seemed and what an interminable succession of furniture now appeared to barricade the way.
Every yard was a mile, every instant I expected he would clutch me.
I reached the door only just in time—happily for me it was open—I darted out, and as I did so the outlines of a hand—large and ill-shapen—shot fruitlessly past me.
The next moment I was in the kitchen—the servants were there—I was saved—saved from a fate that would assuredly have sent me mad.
When I related what had happened, to my mother, she laughingly informed me I must have been dreaming, that there was NO WELL there, nor was there any man in the house save my father and the servants; yet I fancied I could detect beneath those smiling assurances a faint and scarcely perceptible horror—and she never let me visit that room again—alone!
But was I dreaming—was there no well, and had that man been but the fancy of a childish and distorted brain?
Sometimes I answered “Yes,” and sometimes “No.”
After this little incident, a manifest, though of necessity, subtle change took place in our household; the servants became infected with a general spirit of uneasiness, which although only shown in my presence by their looks, convinced and alarmed me far more than any fears, even the most terrible, would have done had they been outspoken. I was positive they lived in daily anticipation of something very dreadful—something that lay concealed in those dark and tortuous corridors or in that grim and ghostly room.
My dreams at night were horrible, nor did I again feel that in this respect I was singular as I overheard some one remark that no one ever passed the night without awakening with a sudden and inexplicable start.
I say inexplicable—would that it had always remained so!