There was a fire in the grate and its dancing caused strange shadows to quiver upon the walls and ceiling, seeming to invest the grim figures on the tapestry with life and motion—an illusion heightened by their rustling with the draught from the open door.
The supernatural element introduced into my mind by the butler's story played the wildest tricks with my imagination, reducing me to so tense a state of nervousness that I almost hesitated to look around, lest some eerie shape should meet my gaze. The sight of my face in the glass mirror so startled me that I turned the mirror round to the wall, in order that I might not be compelled to contemplate my own reflection, to which I felt attracted, not from vanity, but from a weird fascination that made me think it was another person in the room mimicking my movements. The brass knob of the door, too, was a source of annoyance, till I hung my handkerchief over it—it looked so like a gleaming eye. And when I had thus absurdly disposed of its glitter, I discovered many other eyes staring at me with maddening persistency from different parts of the room.
Anxious to chase away if possible the morbid fancies that were fast crowding into my mind and threatening to render my sleep the reverse of pleasant, I looked around for some book to divert my thoughts, and, suddenly remembering that at the bottom of my trunk was a volume of Pickwick, I drew it forth, and, having raked up the fire into a cheerful blaze, was soon laughing heartily over the drolleries of that immortal work.
How long I continued turning over page after page I cannot tell; my reading was brought to a sudden stop by a scream which rang long, loud, and piercing through the corridors of the Abbey. I flung down Pickwick and darted to the door to listen. The scream was repeated, and I recognized Daphne's voice.
"Oh, Frank, Frank!"
Even in the excitement of that terrible moment a feeling of pleasure came over me. Why should Daphne, in her fear, call upon my name, unless I were the first person in her thoughts?
There was an ancient-looking sword hanging over the fireplace, and I took it down and rushed along the corridor in the direction of Daphne's voice.
Coming to the room which I knew to be hers, I dashed open the door, and saw Daphne sitting erect in bed, her eyes staring wildly around, her face and manner expressive of the extremity of terror. I at once ran to the bedside.
"Oh, Frank, don't leave me, don't leave me till some one comes!"
She followed up this appeal by a flood of tears, and clung tightly to my arm with both her hands, while staring about her on all sides.