midnight
She advanced towards him , and he said to her , in a solemn voice , ` The eye that hath seen me shall see me no more . Thine eye is upon me , but I am not . ' And with these words he vanished ; and on that very day and hour , as it afterwards appeared , he had perished by shipwreck . The whole party now drew round in a circle , and each related some ghostly anecdote , heedless of the flight of time , till , in a pause of the conversation , they heard the hollow tongue of midnight sounding twelve . MR HILARY All these anecdotes admit of solution on psychological principles . It is more easy for a soldier , a philosopher , or even a saint , to be frightened at his own shadow , than for a dead man to come out of his grave . Medical writers cite a thousand singular examples of the force of imagination .