“I was straining my eyes in the effort to read the superscriptions when I seemed to hear, or, rather, feel, something rustle back of me.  I paid no attention, believing that a draught from the window was moving some drapery.  But in a minute or so another movement, almost imperceptible, sent a strangely disagreeable little shiver over my skin.  It was so stupid to be affected, even slightly, that self-respect prevented my turning around.  I had just found the second package I needed and was about to lay my hand on the third when a long and painful sigh, uttered just at my shoulder, made me bound like a madman from my seat and land several feet off.  As I jumped I had turned round my hand on the hilt of my sword, and, truly, if I had not felt it at my side I should have taken to my heels like a coward.

“A tall woman dressed in white, stood gazing at me from the back of the chair where I had been sitting an instant before.

“Such a shudder ran through all my limbs that I nearly fell backward.  No one who has not experienced it can understand that frightful, unreasoning terror!  The mind becomes vague, the heart ceases to beat, the entire body grows as limp as a sponge.

“I do not believe in ghosts, nevertheless I collapsed from a hideous dread of the dead, and I suffered, oh!  I suffered in a few moments more than in all the rest of my life from the irresistible terror of the supernatural.  If she had not spoken I should have died perhaps.  But she spoke, she spoke in a sweet, sad voice that set my nerves vibrating.  I dare not say that I became master of myself and recovered my reason.  No!  I was terrified and scarcely knew what I was doing.  But a certain innate pride, a remnant of soldierly instinct, made me, almost in spite of myself, maintain a bold front.  She said: 

“‘Oh, sir, you can render me a great service.’

“I wanted to reply, but it was impossible for me to pronounce a word.  Only a vague sound came from my throat.  She continued: 

“’Will you?  You can save me, cure me.  I suffer frightfully.  I suffer, oh! how I suffer!’ and she slowly seated herself in my armchair, still looking at me.

“‘Will you?’ she said.

“I nodded in assent, my voice still being paralyzed.

“Then she held out to me a tortoise-shell comb and murmured: 

“’Comb my hair, oh! comb my hair; that will cure me; it must be combed.  Look at my head—­how I suffer; and my hair pulls so!’

“Her hair, unbound, very long and very black, it seemed to me, hung over the back of the armchair and touched the floor.

“Why did I promise?  Why did I take that comb with a shudder, and why did I hold in my hands her long black hair that gave my skin a frightful cold sensation, as though I were handling snakes?  I cannot tell.

“That sensation has remained in my fingers, and I still tremble in recalling it.

“I combed her hair.  I handled, I know not how, those icy locks.  I twisted, knotted, and unknotted, and braided them.  She sighed, bowed her head, seemed happy.  Suddenly she said, ‘Thank you!’ snatched the comb from my hands and fled by the door that I had noticed ajar.