There was another book that came in her way about the same time, and exercised the same fatal spell over her impressible imagination. It was that volume of De Quincy’s works containing the “Three Memorable Murders,” and worked up with all the fearful intensity of the Opium Eater.
The effect of these books upon her excitable nervous system was terrible.
This was owing very much to the circumstances under which they were read. In a solitary house, in a deep wood, in the dead of night, and in the depth of winter. And often, her imagination would be so wrought upon, that she would not dare to lift her eyes to the looking-glass over the mantle-piece, lest she should meet there the reflection of some face other than her own, nor venture to glance at the windows on her left, for fear she should see some spectral form peering in through the darkness.
And so, in the appalling solitude and silence of the scene, and of the hour, imaginary terrors were added to real troubles, and between them both her nervous system was nearly broken down.
It is true that she might have ameliorated her condition in more than one way, but that she had too much consideration for others and too little for herself.
She might have gone to bed early each night but that Alexander had no night key, and there was no one to let him in whenever he pleased to return, except herself.
Also, she might have made Pina sit up to keep her company; but she would not deprive the girl of rest.
Lastly, she could at least have closed the window shutters against that imaginary spectral form she always feared to see; but she chose to leave them open that the light from her drawing-room might cheer her beloved in his late approach to the house—whenever he chose to come home; which was not often at this period.
But this state of things could not last forever; and a crisis was at hand.
One dark, still, winter night, when not a star was to be seen in the sky, and the very air, as well as the earth and the water seemed frozen—between two and three o’clock after midnight, Drusilla sat alone in her drawing-room.