e night; for
our debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted until morning. The
wine flowed freely, and there were not wanting other and perhaps more
dangerous seductions; so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared
in the east, while our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly
flushed with cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon
a toast of more than wonted profanity, when my attention was suddenly
diverted by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the
apartment, and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said
that some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with me
in the hall.

Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather delighted
than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a few steps brought
me to the vestibule of the building. In this low and small room there
hung no lamp; and now no light at all was admitted, save that of the
exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through the semi-circular
window. As I put my foot over the threshold, I became aware of the
figure of a youth about my own height, and habited in a white kerseymere
morning frock, cut in the novel fashion of the one I myself wore at the
moment. This the faint light enabled me to perceive; but the features of
his face I could not distinguish. Upon my entering he strode hurriedly
up to me, and, seizing me by. the arm with a gesture of petulant
impatience, whispered the words "William Wilson!" in my ear.

I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the manner of
the stranger, and in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he
held it between my eyes and the light, which filled me with unqualified
amazement; but it was not this which had so violently moved me. It
was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular, low, hissing
utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the tone, the key, of
those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered syllables, which came
with a thousand thronging memories of bygone days, and struck upon my
soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere I could recover the use
of my senses he was gone.

Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my disordered
imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some weeks, indeed, I
busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of morbid
speculation. I did not pretend to disguise from my perception the
identity of the singular indivi