She uttered a stifled sob, trembled from head to foot, and suddenly, with a painful exertion, started to a sitting position. The old man, thinking she had awoke, glided behind the bed-curtains to conceal himself from her view; but without opening her eyes, she remained for some moments immovable in the position she had assumed. Gradually the changes in her countenance betokened those of her thoughts; the terror impressed upon her features gave place to an expression of contemplation, which in turn changed to one of anxious and profound attention. At length, as if the excitement of her nerves had reached the degree of intensity at which the phenomena of somnambulism commence, bending her head, as if to catch some distant sound, she suddenly arose, threw over her shoulders a night-robe, and gliding on tip-toe, cautiously approached the window.
'Midnight!' said she, in a low tone; 'there is not a drop of blood in my veins; the wall is so high! Should he fall! Hark! I hear him in the garden. How loudly he walks! It is the gravel they have put upon the paths. Oh! this is, this must be, the last time: I shall tell him so. This fear is worse than death!'
With a precision in her movements manifesting that internal clairvoyance, of which science has not yet offered us a satisfactory explanation, the somnambulist, whose eye-lids were still closed, extinguished the night-lamp and drew the bolt of the door. She then drew aside the curtains, and opened the window, without the slightest sound reaching the ears of her husband, who a few paces behind her followed this pantomime with looks of sullen fury. She next took from her work-box a long riband, which she unrolled from the window, until it might be supposed to touch the ground; a moment afterward she drew it in, and made a movement as if she were attaching the hook of a rope-ladder to the balcony. Then, breathless and palpitating, she withdrew into the interior of the chamber. Suddenly she opened her arms, and threw them around an imaginary being, murmuring in impassioned tones, 'My life! my life!' She embraced but empty space, and remained for some time as if confounded, with arms crossed upon her bosom.
'Arthur!' cried she at length, aloud, and rushed in a wild paroxysm of terror toward the balcony. The feeble hands of her husband found strength for the moment to hold her back.
'I am terrified! I must not be terrified!' exclaimed she, in a low voice, as she struggled in his arms. The anxiety of the loving woman had now given place to the instinct peculiar to persons subject to somnambulism; who with an incomprehensible perception of their situation, dread above all things being suddenly awakened. But the paroxysm had been too violent for a peaceful termination. Those mysterious filaments by which the soul extends itself during the slumber of the organs which are its accustomed agents, were suddenly severed; as the chords of a harp are snapped by the contact of too rude a hand. The young woman awoke, and uttered stifled shrieks at finding herself, in profound darkness, in the clasp of unknown arms, which held her tightly in their embrace.
'It is I, Lucia,' said the old man, with a painful effort; 'it is I; be not afraid.'
Releasing her from his grasp, he then lighted the candles, closed the window, and with an air of composure approached his wife, who was now seated on the bed, gazing around in silent amazement.
'What has happened?' demanded she, pressing her forehead with both hands; 'I have a chaos, a volcano in my head! How came you here?'
'I heard you walking,' replied the husband, in a subdued voice; 'I was afraid that you were ill, and came up.'
'Can you hear one walking here from your chamber?' replied Lucia, with a secret terror.