“Now, Janet, I’ll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman was⁠—must have been⁠—Grace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself: from all you know, you have reason so to call her⁠—what did she do to me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her. I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house: when we have been married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the mystery?”

I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one: satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear so⁠—relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him.