It crossed the floor, and she heard it on the stairs. Miss
Sophonisba raised her head from her pillow and looked around. There could
be no doubt that she was awake. She could see everything in the room: her
sister slept quietly at her side, and the moonlight shone in brightly at
the window. The slow step came up the stairs and in at the open door. She
heard it on the boards: her eyes beheld the shadow of her sister's vision,
so wavering and indistinct that she could not say with certainty that it
wore the semblance of a human form. The blood at her heart seemed to stand
still, but yet she neither screamed nor fainted, nor tried to wake her
sister. She watched the Thing as it moved to and fro in the chamber.
Suddenly it came toward her, and stood at the bedside, seeming indeed, as
Faithful had said, to be "all around her in the air," and weigh upon her
with a sense of oppression almost unendurable as the shadowy Presence
obscured the moonbeams. Miss Sophonisba bent all her will to the effort,
and with an heroic exertion she put out her hand to try by the sense of
touch if indeed she was in her waking senses. Her fingers were met by
others, soft, cold and damp. For a second, which seemed an hour, they
grasped her extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way
seemed half familiar.
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