Here our conversation ceased, and we passed our time as usual until it
drew towards two o'clock in the afternoon, when my friend suddenly
stopped in the middle of talking and said,

"Do not disturb me, Molly dear, or allow anyone else to. I am going to
John." Then throwing herself back in an arm-chair, she appeared almost
immediately in a sound sleep, resembling a swoon. I then observed, as it
were, two outlines to her form, for a cloudy substance like a halo began
to envelop her, which, widening as it rose upwards, from the body began
to solidify or partially so, and to assume the exact form and features
of Claribel. Having separated itself from her person, it passed rapidly
before my face like a gust of wind, causing my hair to stir and crackle
as if singed with a candle,[20] and passing head foremost through the
window with inconceivable velocity was instantly lost to my view. An indescribable feeling of horror passed over me at being left thus
alone with what appeared to be the corpse of my friend. The next moment
my father entered the room, and fearing lest he should wake my friend in
the middle of her trance by his talking, I ran to the door and begged he
would not enter, as Claribel felt rather poorly and he might awake her,
so he prudently retired to another room, when I gently turned the key of
the door and kept watch close to the clay of my friend until the spirit
should return to re-animate it. Let us now take a peep at John in prison. Poor fellow! He had not slept
a wink all night. He rose worn and languid. Disdaining his frugal
breakfast of bread and water, with arms folded, eyes fixed and head sunk
upon his breast, he paced dejectedly up and down the narrow limits of
his cell. "Is this John Archer?" he soliloquised. "Is this the man once surrounded
by friends, the hope and pride of his parents, the favoured servant of
Lord Edgedown, honoured and respected by all, now handcuffed and led off
to prison on a charge of murder to await an ignominious trial, and
probably be condemned to hang by the neck till he is dead in the
presence of a jeering rabble? It cannot be. I must be transformed. I
must be dreaming. This is not John Archer. Is John Archer a murderer? Can I really have committed a murder in a state of delirium which has
obliterated all recollection of the crime committed? It must be so. How
else could I have slept all night on the bare ground and on awaking find
my gun discharged, my clothes bloodstained, and even the butt end of my
rifle besmeared with blood? "How is all this to be accounted for? I must have committed murder. Who
will believe me if I assert my innocence, or how will the law be brought
to look upon the crime as committed during temporary insanity? No; I
shall be found guilty, condemned, and executed. I do believe that the
vision of last night that appeared to me bearing the form and features
of Claribel was my guardian angel come to apprise me of my doom. "Oh, Claribel, Claribel! must we then for ever be parted? But what was
that vision? Claribel in the flesh? For so it appeared; for sure it was
no dream, yet how could that be? Could she herself have broken through
bolts and bars or obtained a pass to speak to me alone? Impossible! Was
it, perchance, some fiend having taken upon himself the likeness of
those divine features in order so to mock me? Or was it merely an
hallucination of my distempered brain? Whatever it was, I would that it
were here again so that I might feast my eyes once more upon its lovely
features ere I die." He paused suddenly, for now, whether it were some trick of the senses,
some hallucination conjured up by his over-excited brain, in the
opposite corner of his cell something like a bluish vapour appeared,
which seemed to grow denser, to solidify until it grew into the
semblance of a human form, bearing the features of--whom? "Claribel!" gasped out the prisoner, hardly above his breath, for his
voice died within him and he remained awe-stricken. "What! Do I rave? Oh, beauteous image! Claribel! Claribel! Tell me, oh, my guardian angel,
hast thou come to announce my doom, to solace my last moments? Oh, if
it be thou indeed, Claribel, in the flesh and no delusion of my senses,
come to me, let me feel the pressure of thy hand." At this moment he sprang forward and attempted to seize the hand of the
figure, which he had no sooner touched than it melted in his grasp,
causing him to feel such a supernatural terror that he staggered
backwards and gave an involuntary shriek. The figure put its finger to its lip, the forefinger of the very hand
that had vanished into thin air at the material touch of John Archer,
but which had immediately resumed its previously defined form upon the
withdrawing of Archer's hand. "Angel or fiend!" he exclaimed. "Whatever thou art, that comest to me in
this lovely guise, declare thy mission, unveil to me the future, and
spare not mine ears if my doom be sealed. If there be hope----"

Here the figure again put its finger to its lip in token of silence, for
Archer, now somewhat over his first surprise, spoke no longer in a husky
whisper, but in a loud voice. "Tell me, tell me," continued the prisoner, lowering his voice, "thou
who seemest no being of this world, and who doubtless art cognisant of
secrets beyond our ken, tell me in pity how I have deserved this fate. Say, have these hands really been dyed in the blood of one of my
fellow-men during the lapse of some passing insanity? Say, why am I
here? Dost thou, O spirit, think me guilty?" The phantom answered not, save by a look of commiseration and a slow
shake of the head. "I see that thou thinkest me not guilty. I thank thee for that. Mine
innocence may yet be proved." The spectre's features lighted up with a look of hope, as if it would
answer "I wish it may." "Angelic being!" he pursued, "vouchsafe me but one word. Say, will the
true murderer be found?" Another look of hope lighted up the spirit's features. "He will, he will; I feel he will!" exclaimed the prisoner,
enthusiastically. "Thank Heaven! But one word more. Dost know the
criminal?" The same look again, accompanied this time by a slight inclination of
the head. "Ah! thou knowest him? His name, his name; tell me!" Here the figure
appeared somewhat confused, as if struggling to speak; then gliding
rather than walking up to the wall of the cell, it traced with its
finger the letters of a name in characters that appeared burnt into the
stone, during which operation a crackling sound was heard similar to
that before alluded to, and Archer, who had watched the movements of the
figure with straining eyeballs and in breathless silence, gave a yell of
surprise and agony as he read the name _Richard de Chevron_, and sank on
the floor of his dungeon in a swoon. A jingling of keys in the passage was now audible, and the next moment
the jailor had entered the cell.