As I put my foot over
      the threshold, I became aware of the figure of a youth about my
      own height, and habited in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut
      in the novel fashion of the one I myself wore at the moment. This
      the faint light enabled me to perceive; but the features of his
      face I could not distinguish. Upon my entering he strode
      hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by the arm with a gesture of
      petulant impatience, whispered the words “William Wilson!” in my
      ear. I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the
      tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it between my
      eyes and the light, which filled me with unqualified amazement;
      but it was not this which had so violently moved me. It was the
      pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular, low, hissing
      utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the tone, the
      key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered syllables,
      which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone days, and
      struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere I
      could recover the use of my senses he was gone. Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my
      disordered imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some
      weeks, indeed, I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped
      in a cloud of morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise
      from my perception the identity of the singular individual who
      thus perseveringly interfered with my affairs, and harassed me
      with his insinuated counsel. But who and what was this
      Wilson?—and whence came he?—and what were his purposes? Upon
      neither of these points could I be satisfied; merely
      ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden accident in his
      family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby’s academy on the
      afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But in a brief
      period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention being all
      absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I soon
      went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with
      an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to
      indulge at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart,—to vie
      in profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the
      wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain. Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament
      broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common
      restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it
      were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it
      suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that,
      giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief
      appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most
      dissolute university of Europe. It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so
      utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek
      acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession,
      and, having become an adept in his despicable science, to
      practise it habitually as a means of increasing my already
      enormous income at the expense of the weak-minded among my
      fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And the very
      enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable
      sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole reason
      of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among
      my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the
      clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such
      courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson—the
      noblest and most liberal commoner at Oxford—him whose follies
      (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled
      fancy—whose errors but inimitable whim—whose darkest vice but a
      careless and dashing extravagance? I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when
      there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman,
      Glendinning—rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus—his riches,
      too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and,
      of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I
      frequently engaged him in play, and contrived, with the gambler’s
      usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the more effectually
      to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I
      met him (with the full intention that this meeting should be
      final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr.
      Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who, to do him justice,
      entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to
      this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled a party
      of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the
      introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in
      the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a
      vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary
      upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how
      any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim. We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at
      length effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole
      antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite _écarté!_ The rest of
      the company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned
      their own cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The
      _parvenu_, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part
      of the evening, to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played,
      with a wild nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I
      thought, might partially, but could not altogether account. In a
      very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount,
      when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what
      I had been coolly anticipating—he proposed to double our already
      extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and
      not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some
      angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I
      finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely
      the prey was in my toils: in less than an hour he had quadrupled
      his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the
      florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I
      perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to
      my astonishment.