He
lay at the inn where the coach stopped, and resolved, before he went
to bed, that he would make his arrival known to no one; would spend but
another night in London; and would spare himself the pang of parting,
even with the honest locksmith.
Such conditions of the mind as that to which he was a prey when he lay
down to rest, are favourable to the growth of disordered fancies, and
uneasy visions. He knew this, even in the horror with which he started
from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the
presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it
were, the witness of his dream. But it was not a new terror of the
night; it had been present to him before, in many shapes; it had haunted
him in bygone times, and visited his pillow again and again. If it had
been but an ugly object, a childish spectre, haunting his sleep, its
return, in its old form, might have awakened a momentary sensation of
fear, which, almost in the act of waking, would have passed away. This
disquiet, however, lingered about him, and would yield to nothing. When
he closed his eyes again, he felt it hovering near; as he slowly sunk
into a slumber, he was conscious of its gathering strength and purpose,
and gradually assuming its recent shape; when he sprang up from his bed,
the same phantom vanished from his heated brain, and left him filled
with a dread against which reason and waking thought were powerless.
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