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obscurity of the night increased the difficulty of
getting over the ground quickly. It was, by my watch, nearly an
hour and a half from the time of our leaving the station before I
heard the sound of the sea in the distance, and the crunch of our
wheels on a smooth gravel drive. We had passed one gate before
entering the drive, and we passed another before we drew up at the
house. I was received by a solemn man-servant out of livery, was
informed that the family had retired for the night, and was then
led into a large and lofty room where my supper was awaiting me,
in a forlorn manner, at one extremity of a lonesome mahogany
wilderness of dining-table.
    I was too tired and out of spirits to eat or drink much,
especially with the solemn servant waiting on me as elaborately as
if a small dinner party had arrived at the house instead of a
solitary man. In a quarter of an hour I was ready to be taken up
to my bedchamber. The solemn servant conducted me into a prettily
furnished room—said, "Breakfast at nine o'clock, sir"—looked all
round him to see that everything was in its proper place, and
noiselessly withdrew.
    "What shall I see in my dreams to-night?" I thought to myself, as
I put out the candle; "the woman in white? or the unknown
inhabitants of this Cumberland mansion?" It was a strange
sensation to be sleeping in the house, like a friend of the
family, and yet not to know one of the inmates, even by sight!
VI
    When I rose the next morning and drew up my blind, the sea opened
before me joyously under the broad August sunlight, and the
distant coast of Scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of
melting blue.
    The view was such a surprise, and such a change to me, after my
weary London experience of brick and mortar landscape, that I
seemed to burst into a new life and a new set of thoughts the
moment I looked at it. A confused sensation of having suddenly
lost my familiarity with the past, without acquiring any
additional clearness of idea in reference to the present or the
future, took possession of my mind. Circumstances that were but a
few days old faded back in my memory, as if they had happened
months and months since. Pesca's quaint announcement of the means
by which he had procured me my present employment; the farewell
evening I had passed with my mother and sister; even my mysterious
adventure on the way home from Hampstead—had all become like
events which might have occurred at some former epoch of my
existence. Although the woman in white was still in my mind, the
image of her seemed to have grown dull and faint already.
    A little before nine o'clock, I descended to the ground-floor of
the house. The solemn man-servant of the night before met me
wandering among the passages, and compassionately showed me the
way to the breakfast-room.
    My first glance round me, as the man opened the door, disclosed a
well-furnished breakfast-table, standing in the middle of a long
room, with many windows in it. I looked from the table to the
window farthest from me, and saw a lady standing at it, with her
back turned towards me. The instant my eyes rested on her, I was
struck by the rare beauty of her form, and by the unaffected grace
of her attitude. Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely
and well-developed, yet not fat; her head set on her shoulders
with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes
of a man, for it occupied its natural place, it filled out its
natural circle, it was visibly and delightfully undeformed by
stays. She had not heard my entrance into the room; and I allowed
myself the luxury of admiring her for a few moments, before I
moved one of the chairs near me, as the least embarrassing means
of attracting her attention. She turned towards me immediately.
The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon
as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a
flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the
window—and I said to myself, The