As he turned his back, madam looked at me. Her face was
really diabolical, and I thought at the moment that she was a
nightmare--that I _dreamed her_! Closing my eyes to shut out the
vision, I kept them thus shut for some moments. When I reopened them
she was gone.
"Well, the surgeon's predictions did not seem likely to be verified. My
fever returned. Throughout the succeeding day I turned and tossed on my
couch; as night came, I had some hideous dreams. A storm was raging
without, and the rain falling in torrents. The building trembled, the
windows rattled--it was a night of nights for some devil's work; and I
remember laughing in my fever, and muttering, 'Now is the time for
delirium, bad dreams, and ugly shapes, to flock around me!'
"I fell into a doze at last, and had, as I thought, a decidedly bad
dream--for I felt certain that I was dreaming, and that what I
witnessed was the sport of my fancy. What I saw, or seemed to see, was
this: the door opened slowly--a head was thrust in, and remained
motionless for an instant; then the head moved, a body followed; madam,
the lady of the dark eyes, glided stealthily toward my cot. It was
enough to make one shudder, Surry, to have seen the stealthy movement
of that phantom. I gazed at it through my half-closed eyelids--saw the
midnight eyes burning in the white face half covered by a shawl thrown
over the head--and, under that covering, the right hand of the phantom
grasped something which I could not make out.
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