"I remember you told me once before that you had seen him, and he himself confirmed it, although I know that you never left the house that day. But, tell me, did no one see you enter?"
"What matter if they did? Bolts and bars are no obstacles to a spirit."
"And you passed through prison walls and bolted doors without opposition?"
"I did, and I promised that I should be with him again in his cell as the clock struck two, so that he might be quite sure that he had not been dreaming."
"You will keep your appointment, of course?" I said.
"If I do not, I do not know who it will be that will prevent me."
Here our conversation ceased, and we passed our time as usual until it drew towards two o'clock in the afternoon, when my friend suddenly stopped in the middle of talking and said,
"Do not disturb me, Molly dear, or allow anyone else to. I am going to John."
Then throwing herself back in an arm-chair, she appeared almost immediately in a sound sleep, resembling a swoon. I then observed, as it were, two outlines to her form, for a cloudy substance like a halo began to envelop her, which, widening as it rose upwards, from the body began to solidify or partially so, and to assume the exact form and features of Claribel. Having separated itself from her person, it passed rapidly before my face like a gust of wind, causing my hair to stir and crackle as if singed with a candle,[20] and passing head foremost through the window with inconceivable velocity was instantly lost to my view.
An indescribable feeling of horror passed over me at being left thus alone with what appeared to be the corpse of my friend. The next moment my father entered the room, and fearing lest he should wake my friend in the middle of her trance by his talking, I ran to the door and begged he would not enter, as Claribel felt rather poorly and he might awake her, so he prudently retired to another room, when I gently turned the key of the door and kept watch close to the clay of my friend until the spirit should return to re-animate it.