more appalling in its utter
hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or to move, and
remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless prey to a whirl
of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the least
terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now
more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with unwonted
energy into the countenance--the limbs relaxed--and, save that the
eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and
draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel character to the
figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,
the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then, altogether
adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when, arising from the bed,
tottering, with feeble steps, with closed eyes, and with the manner of
one bewildered in a dream, the thing that was enshrouded advanced boldly
and palpably into the middle of the apartment.

I trembled not--I stirred not--for a crowd of unutterable fancies
connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor, of the figure,
rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed--had chilled me into
stone. I stirred not--but gazed upon the apparition. There was a mad
disorder in my thoughts--a tumult unappeasable. Could it, indeed, be the
_living_ Rowena who confronted me? Could it, indeed, be Rowena _at
all_--the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine?
Why, _why_ should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily about the
mouth--but then might it not be the mouth of the breathing Lady of
Tremaine? And the cheeks--there were the roses as in her noon of
life--yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of the living Lady of
Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in health, might it not be
hers?--but _had she then grown taller since her malady?_ What
inexpressible madness seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had
reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head,
unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and there
streamed forth into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber huge masses of
long and disheveled hair; _it was blacker than the raven wings of
midnight._ And now slowly opened _the eyes_ of the figure which stood
before me. "Here then, at least," I shrieked aloud, "can I never--can I
never be mistaken--these are the full, and the black, and the wild
eyes--of my lost love--of the Lady--o