So she lay like one dead, except in being clearly conscious of all that
was going on around her. She knew when Lyon laid down, and when he went
to sleep. And still she lay in that heavy state, which was at once a
profound repose and a clear consciousness, for perhaps an hour longer,
when suddenly the stillness of the scene was stirred by a sound so
slight that it could only have been heard by one whose senses were, like
hers at that time, preternaturally acute. The sound was of the slow,
cautious turning of a door upon its hinges!
Without moving hand or foot, she just languidly lifted her eyelids, and
looked around upon the dim darkness.
There was a faint glow from the smouldering fire on the flagstone floor,
and there was a faint light from the starlit night coming through the
windows. By the aid of these she saw, as in a dream, the door of the
vault wide open!
In her profound state of conscious repose there was no fear of danger,
and no wish to move. So, still as in a dream, she witnessed what
followed.
First a dark, shrouded figure issued from the vault, and turned around
and bent down towards it, as if speaking to some one within. But no word
was heard. Then the figure backed a pace, drawing up from the steps of
the vault what seemed to be a long narrow box. As this box came up, it
was followed by another dark, shrouded figure, who supported its other
end. And as the two mysterious apparitions now stood beside the altar,
Sybil saw that the box that they held between them was a coffin!
Nor was that all. While they moved a little down the side wall, they
were followed by two other strange figures, issuing from the vault in
the same order, and bearing between them, in the same manner, a second
coffin; and as they, in their turn, filed down the side wall, they also
were followed by still two others coming up out of the vault, and
bringing with them a third coffin!
And then a ghastly procession formed against the side wall. Three long
shadowy coffins borne by six dark shrouded figures, filed past the
gothic windows, and disappeared through the open chapel door.
Sybil clearly saw all this, as in a nightmare from which she could not
escape; she still lay motionless, speechless, and helpless, until she
quite lost consciousness in a profound and dreamless sleep. So deep and
heavy was this sleep, that she had no sense of existence for many hours.
When at length she did awake, it seemed almost to a new life, so
utterly, for a time, was all that had recently past forgotten. But as
she arose and looked around, and collected her faculties, and remembered
her position, she was astonished to see by the shining of the sun into
the western windows, that it was late in the afternoon, and that they
had slept nearly all day, for her husband was still sleeping heavily.