Very likely the strength he now put forth was intensified by a convulsive
reaction of all the powers of life, as is not infrequently the case in
sudden awakenings from similar interruptions of vital activity. The coming
to himself and the bursting of his case were simultaneous. He sat staring
about him, with, of all his mental faculties, only his imagination awake,
from which the thoughts that occupied it when he fell senseless had not
yet faded. These thoughts had been compounded of feelings about Lilith,
and speculations about the vampire that haunted the neighbourhood; and the
fumes of the last drug of which he had partaken, still hovering in his
brain, combined with these thoughts and fancies to generate the delusion
that he had just broken from the embrace of his coffin, and risen, the
last-born of the vampire race. The sense of unavoidable obligation to
fulfil his doom, was yet mingled with a faint flutter of joy, for he knew
that he must go to Lilith. With a deep sigh, he rose, gathered up the pall
of black velvet, flung it around him, stepped from the couch, and left the
study to find her.
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