"On a fine evening in February I was standing alone in one of the deserted rooms of the western turret at the Abbey, looking at the sunset.Just before the sun went down I felt a sensation stealing over me which it is impossible to explain.I saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing.This utter self-oblivion came suddenly; it was not fainting, for I did not fall to the ground, did not move an inch from my place.If such a thing could be, I should say it was the temporary separation of soul and body without death; but all description of my situation at that time is impossible.Call my state what you will, trance or catalepsy, I know that Iremained standing by the window utterly unconscious--dead, mind and body--until the sun had set.Then I came to my senses again;and then, when I opened my eyes, there was the apparition of Stephen Monkton standing opposite to me, faintly luminous, just as it stands opposite me at this very moment by your side."Was this before the news of the duel reached England?" I asked.
"_Two weeks before_ the news of it reached us at Wincot.And even when we heard of the duel, we did not hear of the day on which it was fought.I only found that out when the document which you have read was published in the French newspaper.The date of that document, you will remember, is February 22d, and it is stated that the duel was fought two days afterward.I wrote down in my pocketbook, on the evening when I saw the phantom, the day of the month on which it first appeared to me.That day was the 24th of February.
He paused again, as if expecting me to say something.After the words he had just spoken, what could I say? what could I think?
"Even in the first horror of first seeing the apparition," he went on, "the prophecy against our house came to my mind, and with it the conviction that I beheld before me, in that spectral presence, the warning of my own doom.As soon as I recovered a little, I determined, nevertheless, to test the reality of what Isaw; to find out whether I was the dupe of my own diseased fancy or not.I left the turret; the phantom left it with me.I made an excuse to have the drawing-room at the Abbey brilliantly lighted up; the figure was still opposite me.I walked out into the park;it was there in the clear starlight.I went away from home, and traveled many miles to the sea-side; still the tall dark man in his death agony was with me.After this I strove against the fatality no more.I returned to the Abbey, and tried to resign myself to my misery.But this was not to be.I had a hope that was dearer to me than my own life; I had one treasure belonging to me that I shuddered at the prospect of losing; and when the phantom presence stood a warning obstacle between me and this one treasure, this dearest hope, then my misery grew heavier than Icould bear.You must know what I am alluding to; you must have heard often that I was engaged to be married?""Yes, often.I have some acquaintance myself with Miss Elmslie.""You never can know all that she has sacrificed for me--never can imagine what I have felt for years and years past"--his voice trembled, and the tears came into his eyes--"but I dare not trust myself to speak of that; the thought of the old happy days in the Abbey almost breaks my heart now.Let me get back to the other subject.I must tell you that I kept the frightful vision which pursued me, at all times and in all places, a secret from everybody, knowing the vile reports about my having inherited madness from my family, and fearing that an unfair advantage would be taken of any confession that I might make.Though the phantom always stood opposite to me, and therefore always appeared either before or by the side of any person to whom Ispoke, I soon schooled myself to hide from others that I was looking at it except on rare occasions, when I have perhaps betrayed myself to you.But my self-possession availed me nothing with Ada.The day of our marriage was approaching."He stopped and shuddered.I waited in silence till he had controlled himself.
"Think," he went on, "think of what I must have suffered at looking always on that hideous vision whenever I looked on my betrothed wife! Think of my taking her hand, and seeming to take it through the figure of the apparition! Think of the calm angel-face and the tortured specter-face being always together whenever my eyes met hers! Think of this, and you will not wonder that I betrayed my secret to her.She eagerly entreated to know the worst--nay, more, she insisted on knowing it.At her bidding I told all, and then left her free to break our engagement.The thought of death was in my heart as I spoke the parting words--death by my own act, if life still held out after our separation.She suspected that thought; she knew it, and never left me till her good influence had destroyed it forever.But for her I should not have been alive now; but for her I should never have attempted the project which has brought me here.""Do you mean that it was at Miss Elmslie's suggestion that you came to Naples?" I asked, in amazement.