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 swallowed a dose of a sedative which had been given me to procure sleep on my first return from India.  I saw Morphew in the hall, and called him to talk to him, and cheat myself, if possible, by that means.  Morphew lingered, however, and, before he came, I was beyond conversation.  I heard him speak, his voice coming vaguely through the turmoil which was already in my ears, but what he said I have never known.  I stood staring, trying to recover my power of attention, with an aspect which ended by completely frightening the man.  He cried out at last that he was sure I was ill, that he must bring me something; which words penetrated more or less into my maddened brain.  It became impressed upon me that he was going to get some one—­one of my father’s doctors, perhaps—­to prevent me from acting, to stop my interference, and that if I waited a moment longer I might be too late.  A vague idea seized me at the same time, of taking refuge with the portrait,—­going to its feet, throwing myself there, perhaps, till the paroxysm should be over.  But it was not there that my footsteps were directed.  I can remember making an effort to open the door of the drawing-room, and feeling myself swept past it, as if by a gale of wind.  It was not there that I had to go.  I knew very well where I had to go,—­once more on my confused and voiceless mission to my father, who understood, although I could not understand.

Yet as it was daylight, and all was clear, I could not help noting one or two circumstances on my way.  I saw some one sitting in the hall as if waiting,—­a woman, a girl, a black-shrouded figure, with a thick veil over her face; and asked myself who she was, and what she wanted there.  This question, which had nothing to do with my present condition, somehow got into my mind, and was tossed up and down upon the tumultuous tide like a stray log on the breast of a fiercely rolling stream, now submerged, now coming uppermost, at the mercy of the waters.  It did not stop me for a moment, as I hurried towards my father’s room, but it got upon the current of