A soiled moonbeam fell on the floor, and filled the place around it with an ancient, dream-like light, which seemed to work strangely on my brain,—filling it, too, as if it were but a sleepy deserted house, haunted by old dreams and memories. Recollecting myself, I re-entered my room, but the candles were both flickering in the sockets, and I was compelled to trust to the moonlight for guidance. I easily reached the foot of the staircase, and began to ascend: not a board creaked, not a banister shook—the whole seemed as solid as rock. I was compelled to grope, for here was no moonlight—only the light, through one window, of the moonlit sky and air. Finding at last no more stairs to ascend, I groped my way on, in some trepidation, I confess; for how should I find my way back? But then the worst result likely to ensue was, that I should have to spend the night without knowing where; for with the first glimmer of morning, I should be able to return to my room. At length, after wandering about, in and out of rooms, my hand fell on the latch of a door, on opening which, I entered a long corridor, with many windows on one side. Broad strips of moonlight lay slantingly across the narrow floor, with regular intervals of shade.
I started, and my heart grew thick, for I thought I saw a movement somewhere—I could neither tell where, nor of what: I only seemed to have been aware of motion. I stood in the first shadow, and gazed, but saw nothing. I sped across the stream of light to the next shadow, and stood again, looking with fearful fixedness of gaze towards the far end of the corridor. Suddenly a white form glimmered and vanished. I crossed to the next shadow—again a glimmer and a vanishing, but nearer. Nerving myself with all my strength, I ceased my stealthy motion, and went straight forward, slowly but steadily. A tall form, apparently of a woman, dressed in a long white loose robe, emerged into one of the streams of light, threw its arms over its head, gave a wild cry—which, notwithstanding its wildness and force, sounded as if muffled by many intervening folds, either of matter or space—and fell at full length along the moonlight track. In the midst of the thrill of agony which shook me at the cry, as a sudden wind thrills from head to foot the leaves of a tree, I rushed forward, and kneeling beside the prostrate figure, soon discovered that, however unearthly the scream which had preceded her fall, it was, in reality, the Lady Alice. Again I trembled, but the tremor was not the same as that which preceded. I saw the fact in a moment: the Lady Alice was a somnambulist. Startled by the noise of my advance, she had awaked; and the usual terror and fainting had followed. She was cold and motionless as death. What was to be done? If I called aloud, the probability was that no one would hear me; or if any one should hear,—but I need not follow the train of thoughts that passed through my mind, as I fruitlessly tried to recover the poor girl. Suffice it to say, that I shrank most painfully, both for her sake and my own, from being found, by common-minded domestics, in such a situation, in the dead of the night.
While I knelt by her side, hesitating as to what I should do, a horror, as from the presence of death suddenly recognized—akin to that feeling which a child experiences when he looks up and sees that his mother, to whom he thought he had been talking for minutes past, is not in the room—fell upon me. I thought she must be dead. At the same moment, I heard, or seemed to hear (how should I know?) the rapid gallop of a horse, and the clank of a loose shoe.
In an agony of fear, which yet I cannot consider cowardice, I caught her up in my arms, and as one carries a sleeping child, sped with her towards that end of the corridor whence I had come. Her head hung back over my arm, and her hair, which had got loose, trailed on the ground. As I fled, I trampled upon it and stumbled. She moaned, and I shuddered. That instant the gallop ceased. Somewhat relieved, I lifted her up across my shoulder, and carried her more easily. How I found my way to the stairs I cannot tell. I know that I groped about for some time, like one in a dream with a ghost in his arms; but at last I reached it, and descending, entered my room, laid her upon one of the old couches, secured the doors, and began to breathe—and think. The first thing that suggested itself was, to try to make her warm—she was so ice-cold. I covered her with my plaid and my dressing-gown, pulled the couch near the fire, and considered what to do next.
But while I hesitated, Nature had her own way, and Lady Alice opened her eyes with a deep-drawn sigh. Never shall I forget the look of mingled bewilderment, alarm, and shame, with which her great dark eyes met mine. In a moment her expression changed to anger. Her eyes flashed; a cloud of roseate wrath grew in her face, till it glowed with the opaque red of a camellia; and she all but started from the couch to her feet. Apparently, however, she discovered the unsuitableness of her dress, for she checked her impetuosity, and remained leaning on her elbow. After a moment’s pause, in which, overcome by her anger, her beauty, and my own confusion, I knelt before her, unable to speak, or to withdraw my eye from hers, she began to question me like a queen, and I to reply like a culprit.
“How did I come here?”
“I carried you.”
Then, with a curling lip—
“Where did you find me, pray?”
“Somewhere in the old house, in a long corridor.”