nly, as the
clock struck, fell with a shriek to the ground, cold and lifeless. With
difficulty, and not until after the most earnest prayers, did she answer
the agonised questions of Glyndon; at last she owned that at that hour,
and that hour alone, wherever she was placed, however occupied, she
distinctly beheld the apparition of an old hag, who, after thrice
knocking at the door, entered the room, and hobbling up to her with a
countenance distorted by hideous rage and menace, laid its icy fingers
on her forehead: from that moment she declared that sense forsook her;
and when she woke again, it was only to wait, in suspense that froze up
her blood, the repetition of the ghastly visitation.

The physician who had been summoned before Glyndon's return, and whose
letter had recalled him to London, was a commonplace practitioner,
ignorant of the case, and honestly anxious that one more experienced
should be employed. Clarence called in one of the most eminent of the
faculty, and to him he recited the optical delusion of his sister. The
physician listened attentively, and seemed sanguine in his hopes of
cure. He came to the house two hours before the one so dreaded by the
patient. He had quietly arranged that the clocks should be put forward
half an hour, unknown to Adela, and even to her brother. He was a man of
the most extraordinary powers of conversation, of surpassing wit, of
all the faculties that interest and amuse. He first administered to the
patient a harmless potion, which he pledged himself would dispel the
delusion. His confident tone woke her own hopes,--he continued to excite
her attention, to rouse her lethargy; he jested, he laughed away the
time. The hour struck. "Joy, my brother!" she exclaimed, throwing
herself in his arms; "the time is past!" And then, like one released
from a spell, she suddenly assumed more than her ancient
cheerfulness. "Ah, Clarence!" she whispered, "forgive me for my former
desertion,--forgive me that I feared YOU. I shall live!--I shall live!
in my turn to banish the spectre that haunts my brother!" And Clarence
smiled and wiped the tears from his burning eyes. The physician renewed
his stories, his jests. In the midst of a stream of rich humour that
seemed to carry away both brother and sister, Glyndon suddenly saw over
Adela's face the same fearful change, the same anxious look, the same
restless, straining eye, he had beheld the night before. He rose,--he
approached her. Adela