Emily's Room
Having
reached her own apartment, where no blazing wood on the hearth dispelled the
gloom, she sat down with a book, to enliven her attention, till Annette should
come, and a fire could be kindled. She
continued to read till her light was nearly expired, but Annette did not appear,
and the solitude and obscurity of her chamber affected her 
spirits,
the more, because of its nearness to the scene of horror, that she had witnessed
in the morning. Gloomy and
fantastic images came to her mind. She
looked fearfully towards the door of the stair-case and then, examining whether
it was still fastened, found that it was so.
Unable to conquer the uneasiness she felt at the prospect of sleeping
again in this remote and insecure apartment, which some persons seemed to have
entered during the preceding night, her impatience to see Annette, whom she had
bidden to enquire concerning this circumstance, became extremely painful.
She wished also to question her, as to the object, which had excited so
much horror in her own mind, and which Annette on the preceding evening had
appeared to be in part acquainted with, though her words were very remote from
the truth, and it appeared plainly to Emily, that the girl had been purposely
misled by a false report: above all she was surprised, that the door of the
chamber, which contained it, should be left unguarded.
Such an instance of negligence almost surpassed belief.
But her light was now expiring; the faint flashes it threw upon the walls
called up all the terrors of fancy, and she rose to find her way to the
habitable part of the castle, before it was quite extinguished.