ok, look!" cried she, in a hollow voice of the deepest terror.
"Don't you see it? the figure--close before me--stretching her hand out
at me. Don't you see her?"

"The children saw nothing whatever; but terror came upon them, and they
all ran away, except one, more courageous than the rest, who hastened
up to Adelgunda, and was going to take her in her arms. But Adelgunda,
turning pale as death, fell to the ground. At the screams of the other
girl every body came hastening from the castle, and Adelgunda was
carried in. At last she recovered from her faint, and, trembling all
over, told them that as soon as she reached the ruins she saw an airy
form, as if shrouded in mist, stretching its hand out towards her. Of
course every one ascribed this vision to some deceptiveness of the
twilight; and Adelgunda recovered from her alarm so completely that
night that no further evil consequences were anticipated, and the whole
affair was supposed to be at an end. However, it turned out altogether
otherwise. The next evening, when the clock struck nine, Adelgunda
sprung up, in the midst of the people about her, and cried--

"'"There she is! there she is. Don't you see her--just before me?"

"'Since that unlucky evening, Adelgunda declared that, as soon as the
clock struck nine, the figure stood before her, remaining visible for
several seconds, although no one but herself could see anything of it,
or trace by any psychic sensation the proximity of an unknown spiritual
principle. So that poor Adelgunda was thought to be out of her mind;
and, in strange perversion of feeling, the family were ashamed of this
condition of hers. I have told you already how she was dealt with in
consequence. There was, of course, no lack of doctors, or of plans of
treatment for ridding the poor soul of the "fixed idea," as people were
pleased to term the apparition which she said she saw. But nothing had
any effect; and she implored, with tears, that she might be left in
peace, inasmuch as the form which, in its vague, uncertain traits, had
nothing terrible or alarming about it, no longer caused her any fear;
although, for a time after seeing it she felt as if her inner being and
all her thoughts and ideas were turned out from her, and were hovering,
bodiless, about, outside of her. At last the colonel made the
acquaintance of a celebrated doctor, who had the reputation of being
specially clever in the treatment of the mentally afflicted. When this
doct