And while I sat there in the twilight-gloom,
  Looking at life with my wide-open eyes,
  A ghost slipp’d suddenly into the room,
  And that ghost was the ghost of Jack Devize!

  A shiver ran o’er me from head to foot—­
  The crisis had come, and fate wrought her worst—­
  I tried to speak, but my tongue was quite mute,
  And I knew that a ghost could not speak first.

  O ought I to wake my Harry, or no? 
  To question the Thing, and let it depart? 
  The good God would never frighten me so,
  If it was not to ease my Harry’s heart.

  But while I was doubting in fear and pain,
  And praying for light to see my way clear,
  The ghost said—­’My goodness! it’s Mrs. Vane! 
  How in the world did the woman come here?’

  The ghost stalk’d towards me with outstretch’d hand: 
  I put mine behind me, and back’d away;
  My terrified brain could not understand,
  And my arid lips had nothing to say.

  Yet for Harry’s sake no time must be lost: 
  I must ask the dreadful Thing why it came;
  Then I remember’d ’twas he kill’d the ghost,
  And I hung down my head and blush’d for shame.

  Suddenly turning, my Harry it saw;
  Suddenly sprang t’wards the couch where he lay;—­
  A deadlier terror conquering awe,
  Brave as a lion, I stood in its way.

  I wav’d both my hands to signal it back: 
  ‘You shall not come near him!’ I wildly said;
  ’He never intended to kill you, Jack—­
  O Jack, I hope you don’t mind being dead!’

  Strive as we will, fate can calmly defeat—­
  What is to be, happens—­and always will;
  Harry awoke, and stood up on his feet,
  And my heart leapt madly and then stood still.

  I trembled for Harry, all unprepar’d! 
  I stood between the Alive and the Dead! 
  The man and the ghost at each other star’d—­
  And the man got white, and the ghost got red.

  The man kept on staring with hungry eyes,
  Pointing at it, till I trembled to see;
  Then said in a whisper, ’It’s Jack Devize!’—­
  Shook himself wildly and turn’d upon me.

  His hand sought his brow in a weak sad way,
  A pitiful look came into his face: 
  ‘It is a brain-phantom,’ I heard him say,
  ‘Which my weary brain engenders in space!’

  ‘No, Harry,’ I whisper’d, ’it is not so;
  I wish that it was—­from my heart I do’—­
  I held him tight, whispering very low,
  ‘Tis a real ghost, for—­I see it too!’

  I felt his arm quiver under my clasp;
  He started backwards with such a great start;
  He flung up his arms, and cried with a gasp,
  ‘Oh speak to me, Jack, whatever thou art!’

  The ghost caught his hands with a cheer almost,
  And shook them right manfully where it stood,
  Shouting ’I’m neither a phantom nor ghost;
  I am Jack Devize, and am flesh and blood!’