and he fell off insensibly to rest without having so much as
thought of extinguishing the candle.

The first sensation of which he was conscious after sinking into
slumber was a strange shivering that ran through him suddenly
from head to foot, and a dreadful sinking pain at the heart, such
as he had never felt before. The shivering only disturbed his
slumbers; the pain woke him instantly. In one moment he passed
from a state of sleep to a state of wakefulness--his eyes wide
open--his mental perceptions cleared on a sudden, as if by a
miracle.

The candle had burned down nearly to the last morsel of tallow,
but the top of the unsnuffed wick had just fallen off, and the
light in the little room was, for the moment, fair and full.

Between the foot of his bed and the closed door there stood a
woman with a knife in her hand, looking at him.

He was stricken speechless with terror, but he did not lose the
preternatural clearness of his faculties, and he never took his
eyes off the woman. She said not a word as they stared each other
in the face, but she began to move slowly toward the left-hand
side of the bed.

His eyes followed her. She was a fair, fine woman, with yellowish
flaxen hair and light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid.
He noticed those things and fixed them on his mind before she was
round at the side of the bed. Speechless, with no expression in
her face, with no noise following her footfall, she came closer