As Lady Rowena drinks a glass of wine, the narrator notes several drops of a brilliant ruby-colored fluid suddenly appear in her glass of wine. Confused, he believes that his vivid imagination has been rendered morbidly active by the opium and by the late hour. Three days later, the Lady Rowena is dead and on the fourth day, as he is sitting alone with the shrouded body of his wife, we hear him confess to thinking not of his wife, but only of the Lady Ligeia.
At midnight, he hears a low sob come from the bed where the corpse of his wife has been laid out. Rising, he studies the shrouded form of the Lady Rowena and, after some time, he notices a very slight tinge of color appear in her face. He is aghast: The Lady Rowena still lives. However, shortly thereafter, she resumes the ghastly expression of death — "a repulsive clamminess and coldness . . . " This occurs a second and a third time, and each time, various, strong signs of life appear and then, suddenly, the corpse becomes intensely rigid and loathsome.
Between each of these horrible experiences, the narrator sinks into visions of the lovely Lady Ligeia, and time and again, this "hideous drama of revivification" occurs until finally the corpse struggles more violently than ever. Then it rises and with tottering, feeble steps, it advances toward the narrator.
Unafraid, he realizes immediately that she has grown taller. Then, touching the corpse, he is aghast to see it shake loose from her head "the ghastly cerements which had confined it." Huge masses of dishevelled hair "blacker than the raven wings of midnight" tumble down and, as the eyes of the corpse open, the narrator, in a frenzy of fierce excitement, knows that he is looking not into the eyes of his wife. Instead, he is looking into the black and wild eyes of his last love — the Lady Ligeia!
