The Woodman

"There soon, however, appeared some drawbacks. In the first place,
Millarca complained of extreme languor--the weakness that remained after
her late illness--and she never emerged from her room till the afternoon
was pretty far advanced. In the next place, it was accidentally
discovered, although she always locked her door on the inside, and never
disturbed the key from its place till she admitted the maid to assist at
her toilet, that she was undoubtedly sometimes absent from her room in
the very early morning, and at various times later in the day, before
she wished it to be understood that she was stirring. She was repeatedly
seen from the windows of the schloss, in the first faint grey of the
morning, walking through the trees, in an easterly direction, and
looking like a person in a trance. This convinced me that she walked in
her sleep. But this hypothesis did not solve the puzzle. How did she
pass out from her room, leaving the door locked on the inside? How did
she escape from the house without unbarring door or window?

"In the midst of my perplexities, an anxiety of a far more urgent kind
presented itself.

"My dear child began to lose her looks and health, and that in a manner
so mysterious, and even horrible, that I became thoroughly frightened.

"She was at first visited by appalling dreams; then, as she fancied, by
a specter, sometimes resembling Millarca, sometimes in the shape of a
beast, indistinctly seen, walking round the foot of her bed, from
side to side.