experts in my case must, however, have been quite satisfactory, for I
heard nothing more of them. It was, I think, a fortnight later when the
next and last of these strange experiences came.

This time it was morning, about noon,--a wet and rather dismal spring
day. The half-spread leaves seemed to tap at the window, with an appeal
to be taken in; the primroses, that showed golden upon the grass at the
roots of the trees, just beyond the smooth-shorn grass of the lawn, were
all drooped and sodden among their sheltering leaves. The very growth
seemed dreary--the sense of spring in the air making the feeling of
winter a grievance, instead of the natural effect which it had conveyed a
few months before. I had been writing letters, and was cheerful enough,
going back among the associates of my old life, with, perhaps, a little
longing for its freedom and independence, but at the same time a not
ungrateful consciousness that for the moment my present tranquillity
might be best.

This was my condition--a not unpleasant one--when suddenly the now
well-known symptoms of the visitation to which I had become subject
suddenly seized upon me,--the leap of the heart; the sudden, causeless,
overwhelming physical excitement, which I could neither ignore nor allay.
I was terrified beyond description, beyond reason, when I became
conscious that this was about to begin over again: what purpose did it
answer; what good was in it? My father indeed understood the meaning of
it though I did not understand; but it was little agreeable to be thus
made a helpless instrument, without any will of mine, in an operation of
which I knew nothing; and to enact the part of the oracle unwillingly,
with suffering and such a strain as it took me days to get over. I
resisted, not as before, but yet desperately, trying with better
knowledge to keep down the growing passion. I hurried to my room and