recess, across the floor of the bedroom, passing my bed at the foot, and
entering the lumber-closet at the left. He had something under his arm;
his head hung a little at one side; and, merciful God! when I saw his
face."

Tom stopped for a while, and then said----

"That awful countenance, which living or dying I never can forget,
disclosed what he was. Without turning to the right or left, he passed
beside me, and entered the closet by the bed's head.

"While this fearful and indescribable type of death and guilt was
passing, I felt that I had no more power to speak or stir than if I had
been myself a corpse. For hours after it had disappeared, I was too
terrified and weak to move. As soon as daylight came, I took courage,
and examined the room, and especially the course which the frightful
intruder had seemed to take, but there was not a vestige to indicate
anybody's having passed there; no sign of any disturbing agency visible
among the lumber that strewed the floor of the closet.

"I now began to recover a little. I was fagged and exhausted, and at
last, overpowered by a feverish sleep. I came down late; and finding you
out of spirits, on account of your dreams about the portrait, whose
_original_ I am now certain disclosed himself to me, I did not care to
talk about the infernal vision. In fact, I was trying to persuade myself
that the whole thing was an illusion, and I did not like to revive in
their intensity the hated impressions of the past night--or to risk the
constancy of my scepticism, by recounting the tale of my sufferings.

"It required some nerve, I can tell you, to go to my haunted chamber