midnight
he asked . `` No ! '' I replied , `` she is my last . '' Toward midnight , while sleeping restlessly , I seemed to hear in my dreams a profound sigh . I opened my eyes and saw my mistress standing near my bed with arms crossed , looking like a specter . I could not restrain a cry of fright , believing it to be an apparition conjured up by my diseased brain . I leaped from my bed and fled to the farther end of the room ; but she followed me .