about him, with, of all his mental faculties, only his imagination awake,
from which the thoughts that occupied it when he fell senseless had not
yet faded. These thoughts had been compounded of feelings about Lilith,
and speculations about the vampire that haunted the neighbourhood; and the
fumes of the last drug of which he had partaken, still hovering in his
brain, combined with these thoughts and fancies to generate the delusion
that he had just broken from the embrace of his coffin, and risen, the
last-born of the vampire race. The sense of unavoidable obligation to
fulfil his doom, was yet mingled with a faint flutter of joy, for he knew
that he must go to Lilith. With a deep sigh, he rose, gathered up the pall
of black velvet, flung it around him, stepped from the couch, and left the
study to find her.

"Meantime, Teufelsbuerst had sufficiently recovered to remember that he had
left the door of the studio unfastened, and that any one entering would
discover in what he had been engaged, which, in the case of his getting
into any difficulty about the death of Karl, would tell powerfully against
him. He was at the farther end of a long passage, leading from the house
to the studio, on his way to make all secure, when Karl appeared at the
door, and advanced towards him. The painter, seized with invincible
terror, turned and fled. He reached his room, and fell senseless on the
floor. The phantom held on its way, heedless.

"Lilith, on gaining her room the second time, had thrown herself on her
bed as before, and had wept herself into a troubled slumber. She lay
dreaming--and dreadful dreams. Suddenly she awoke in one of those peals of
thunder which tormented the high regions of the air, as a storm billows
the surface of the ocean. She lay awake and listened. As it died away, she
thought she heard, mingling with its last muffled murmurs, the sound of
moaning. She turned her face towards the room in keen terror. But she saw