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back to reason.
And the evening closed in upon me thus--and then the darkness came, and
tarried, and went--and the day again dawned--and the mists of a second
night were now gathering around--and still I sat motionless in that
solitary room--and still I sat buried in meditation--and still the
phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy, as, with
the most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changing
lights and shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my
dreams a cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause,
succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many low
moanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose from my seat, and throwing open
one of the doors of the library, saw standing out in the ante-chamber
a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me that Berenice was--no more!
She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the
closing in of the night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the
preparations for the burial were completed.
*
* * * *
I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone. It
seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream.
I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware, that since the
setting of the sun, Berenice had been interred. But of that dreary
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