midnight
Then it was -- with the very act of its announcing itself -- that her identity flared up in a change of posture . She rose , not as if she had heard me , but with an indescribable grand melancholy of indifference and detachment , and , within a dozen feet of me , stood there as my vile predecessor . Dishonored and tragic , she was all before me ; but even as I fixed and , for memory , secured it , the awful image passed away . Dark as midnight in her black dress , her haggard beauty and her unutterable woe , she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers . While these instants lasted , indeed , I had the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder . It was as a wild protest against it that , actually addressing her -- `` You terrible , miserable woman ! '' -- I heard myself break into a sound that , by the open door , rang through the long passage and the empty house .