with which I had regarded
her thus enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of
bitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing
upon the body of Rowena.

It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I had
taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,
startled me from my revery.--I felt that it came from the bed of
ebony--the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious
terror--but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my vision
to detect any motion in the corpse--but there was not the slightest
perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I had heard the noise,
however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I resolutely and
perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes
elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the
mystery. At length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and
barely noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks,
and along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of
unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality has no
sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease to beat, my
limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty finally operated to
restore my self-possession. I could no longer doubt that we had been
precipitate in our preparations--that Rowena still lived. It was
necessary that some immediate exertion be made; yet turret was
altogether apart from the portion of the abbey tenanted by the
servants--there were none within call--I had no means of summoning them
to my aid without leaving the room for many minutes--and this I could
not venture to do. I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to call
back the spirit ill hovering. In a short period it was certain, however,
that a relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both eyelid
and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the lips
became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly expression
of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the
surface of the body; and all the usual rigorous illness immediately
supervened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had
been so startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate
waking visions of Ligeia.

An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second
time aware of some vague sound issuing fr