Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/83

 the resolution of determining the truth of my suspicions. All the family but myself were at rest; winding passages would conduct me, without danger of disturbing them, to the hall from which double staircases ascended: one of these led to a saloon above, on the east side of which was a door that communicated with a suite of rooms occupied by the lady of the mansion. The first was an antechamber, in which a female servant usually lay; the second was the lady's own bed-chamber: this was a sacred recess, with whose situation, relative to the other apartments of the building, I was well acquainted, but of which I knew nothing from my own examination, having never been admitted into it.

"Thither I was now resolved to repair. I was not deterred by the sanctity of the place and hour; I was insensible to all consequences but the removal of my doubts:—not that my hopes were balanced by my fears:—that the same tragedy had been performed in her chamber and in the street, nothing hindered me from believing with as much cogency as if my own eyes had witnessed it, but the reluctance with which we admit a detestable truth.

"To terminate a state of intolerable suspense, I resolved to proceed forthwith to her chamber. I took the light, and paced, with no interruption, along the galleries. I used no precaution: if I had met a servant or a robber, I am not sure that I should have noticed him; my attention was too perfectly engrossed to allow me to spare any to a casual object. I cannot affirm that no one observed me; this, however, was probable, from the distribution of the dwelling. It consisted of a central edifice and two wings; one of which was appropriated to domestics, and the other, at the extremity of which my apartment was placed, comprehended a library, and rooms for formal and social and literary conferences: these, therefore, were deserted at night, and my way lay along these; hence it was not likely that my steps would be observed.

"I proceeded to the hall: the principal parlour was beneath her chamber; in the confusion of my thoughts I mistook one for the other; I rectified as soon as I detected my mistake. I ascended, with a beating heart, the staircase. The door of the antechamber was unfastened; I