IV

IV

It was not that I didn’t wait,on this occasion, for more,for I was rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a“secret” at Bly—a mystery of Udolpho or aninsane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement?I can’t say how long I turned it over, or how long, in aconfusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had mycollision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darknesshad quite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had heldme and driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, havewalked three miles; but I was to be, later on, so much moreoverwhelmed that this mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively humanchill. The most singular part of it, in fact—singular as therest had been—was the part I became, in the hall, aware of inmeeting Mrs. G……