Page:The Keepsake for 1838.djvu/238

 Adelaide gravely assured us, that so far as she herself knew, and believed, she had never in her life been a sleepwalker. But even if she had unconsciously been subject to this dangerous propensity, there was no communication whatever between her apartment, and the haunted one. Her visit, therefore, to it, was at all events utterly impossible.

But I was too certain of the fact, to suffer myself to be affected by this denial; and I suggested to her, as a corroboration of my assertion, the possible connection of her nightwalking, with her second sight. I then begged her to examine carefully the way to the chamber of the Silver Lady; when she might probably not only discover some secret communication, but even find the ring which she had lost.

Adelaide yielded at last, though reluctantly, to my entreaties; and, accompanied by the Baron, we passed through a long closed, desolate looking passage. A small flight of steps led upwards, until we came to a door in the tapestry; when my assertion was confirmed. This door communicated with the dreaded chamber; where, instead of a horrible spectre, the lovely Adelaide had appeared to me. Upon examination, however, it became perfectly incomprehensible to me, how the fair night wanderer could have contrived to open the locked and rusty door.

After a minute but ineffectual search, I was compelled to admit the disagreeable conviction that the ring which I so valued was irrecoverably lost. We then prepared to quit these scenes of desolation; but the ruins of the fallen tower made any path through the room impossible. Consequently, we were obliged to retrace our steps, and return by our former route.

When we descended the staircase, and found ourselves again in the gloomy, dusky passage, Adelaide suddenly started; and, with an expression of preternatural excitation, pointed vehemently to an opposite wall, where we saw nothing; but she