“Alfred glanced suddenly and searchingly at me: his face became deadly pale; and, without speaking a word, he hurried from the room.
“‘Can you explain this?’ said my father, looking very much astonished.
“I hesitated a moment, and then told him what I had seen. He took a pinch of snuff—a favorite habit with him when he was going to be sarcastic, in imitation of Voltaire.
“‘One visionary in a family is enough,’ said he: ‘I recommend you not to turn yourself into a bad imitation of your brother Alfred! Send your ghost after me, my good boy! I am going back into the garden, and should like to see him again.’
“Ridicule, even much sharper than this, would have had little effect on me. If I was certain of any thing in the world, I was certain that I had seen my brother in the study—nay, more, had touched him—and equally certain that I had seen his double—his exact similitude in the garden. As far as any man could know that he was in possession of his own senses, I knew myself to be in possession of mine. Left alone to think over what I had beheld, I felt a supernatural terror creeping through me—a terror which increased when I recollected that, on one or two occasions, friends had said they had seen Alfred out of doors, when we all knew him to be at home. These statements—which my father had laughed at, and had taught me to laugh at, either as a trick, or a delusion on the part of others—now recurred to my memory as startling corroborations of what I had just seen myself. The solitude of the study oppressed me in a manner which I cannot describe. I left the apartment to seek Alfred, determined to question him with all possible caution, on the subject of his strange trance, and his sensations at the moment when I had awakened him from it.
“I found him in his bed-room, still pale, and now very thoughtful. As the first words in reference to the scene in the study passed my lips, he started violently, and entreated me, with very unusual warmth of speech and manner, never to speak to him on that subject again—never, if I had any love or regard for him! Of course, I complied with his request. The mystery, however, was not destined to end here.
“About two months after the event which I have just related, we had arranged, one evening, to go to the theatre. My father had insisted that Alfred should be of the party, otherwise he would certainly have declined accompanying us; for he had no inclination whatever for public amusements of any kind. However, with his usual docility, he prepared to obey my father’s desire, by going up-stairs to put on his evening-dress. It was winter time, so he was obliged to take a candle with him.
“We waited in the drawing-room for his return a very long time, so long, that my father was on the point of sending up-stairs to remind him of the lateness of the hour, when Alfred reappeared without the candle which he had taken with him from the room. The ghastly alteration that had passed over his face—the hideous, death-look that distorted his features I shall never forget—I shall see it to-morrow on the scaffold!
“Before either my father or I could utter a word, my brother said—‘I have been taken suddenly ill; but I am better now. Do you still wish me to go to the theatre?’
“‘Certainly not, my dear Alfred,’ answered my father; ‘we must send for the doctor immediately.’