The mystery was beyond her fathoming: the darkness began to oppress her.

She struck the match on the box, and lit her candle.
As the welcome light diffused itself over the room, she turned from the table and looked towards the other side of the bed.
In the moment when she turned, the chill of a sudden terror gripped her round the heart, as with the clasp of an icy hand.
She was not alone in her room! There--in the chair at the bedside--there, suddenly revealed under the flow of light from the candle, was the figure of a woman, reclining.
Her head lay back over the chair.

Her face, turned up to the ceiling, had the eyes closed, as if she was wrapped in a deep sleep.
The shock of the discovery held Agnes speechless and helpless.

Her first conscious action, when she was in some degree mistress of herself again, was to lean over the bed, and to look closer at the woman who had so incomprehensibly stolen into her room in the dead of night.

One glance was enough: she started back with a cry of amazement.