never
believed that a happy life lay before her, but now, in this awful
moment, her despair was complete. She shook convulsively as she set the
key in the lock; so great indeed was her agitation, that she stopped for
a moment and laid her hand on her heart, as if to still the heavy throbs
that sounded in her ears. Then she opened the door.

The creaking of the hinges sounded doubtless in vain on the murderer's
ears. Acute as were his powers of hearing, he stood as if lost in
thought, and so motionless that he might have been glued to the wall
against which he leaned. In the circle of semi-opaque darkness, dimly
lit by the bull's-eye lantern, he looked like the shadowy figure of
some dead knight, standing for ever in his shadowy mortuary niche in
the gloom of some Gothic chapel. Drops of cold sweat trickled over the
broad, sallow forehead. An incredible fearlessness looked out from every
tense feature. His eyes of fire were fixed and tearless; he seemed to
be watching some struggle in the darkness beyond him. Stormy thoughts
passed swiftly across a face whose firm decision spoke of a character
of no common order. His whole person, bearing, and frame bore out the
impression of a tameless spirit. The man looked power and strength
personified; he stood facing the darkness as if it were the visible
image of his own future.

These physical characteristics had made no impression upon the General,
familiar as he was with the powerful faces of the group of giants
gathered about Napoleon; speculative curiosity, moreover, as to the
why and wherefore of the apparition had completely filled his mind; but
Helene, with feminine sensitiveness to surface impressions, was struck
by the blended chaos of light and darkness, grandeur and passion,
suggesting a likeness between this stranger and Lucifer recovering from
his fall. Suddenly the storm apparent in his face was stilled as if by
magic; and the indefinable power to sway which the stranger exercised
upon others, and perhaps unconsciously and as by reflex action upon
himself, spread its influence about him with the progressive swiftness
of a flood. A torrent of thought rolled away from his brow as his face
resumed its ordinary expression. Perhaps it was the strangeness of this
meeting, or perhaps it was the mystery into which she had penetrated,
that held the young girl spellbound in the doorway, so that she could
look at a face pleasant to behold and full of interest. For some moment