"Good evening, sir! You are very welcome!" said a voice.

I've had some starts in my life, but never one to come up to that one.
There, in the opening of the shutters, within reach of my arm, was
standing a woman with a small coil of wax taper burning in her hand. She
was tall and straight and slender, with a beautiful white face that
might have been cut out of clear marble, but her hair and eyes were as
black as night. She was dressed in some sort of white dressing-gown
which flowed down to her feet, and what with this robe and what with her
face, it seemed as if a spirit from above was standing in front of me.
My knees knocked together, and I held on to the shutter with one hand
to give me support. I should have turned and run away if I had had the
strength, but I could only just stand and stare at her.

She soon brought me back to myself once more.

"Don't be frightened!" said she, and they were strange words for the
mistress of a house to have to use to a burglar. "I saw you out of my
bedroom window when you were hiding under those trees, so I slipped
downstairs, and then I heard you at the window. I should have opened it
for you if you had waited, but you managed it yourself just as I came
up."

I still held in my hand the long clasp-knife with which I had opened the
shutter. I was unshaven and grimed from a week on the roads. Altogether,
there are few people who would have cared to face me alone at one in the
morning; but this woman, if I had been her lover meeting her by
appointment, could not have looked upon me with a more welcoming eye.
She laid her hand upon my sleeve and drew me into the room.

"What's the meaning of this, ma'am? Don't get trying any little games
upon me," said I, in my roughest way--and I can put it on rough when I
like. "It'll be the worse for you if you play me any trick," I added,
showing her my knife.

"I will play you no trick," said she. "On the contrary, I am your
friend, and I wish to help you."

"Excuse me, ma'am, but I find it hard to believe that," said I. "Why
should you wish to help me?"

"I have my own reasons," said she; and then suddenly, with those black
eyes blazing out of her white face: "It's because I hate him, hate him,
hate him! Now you understand."

I remembered what the landlord had told me, and I did understand. I
looked at her Ladyship's face, and I knew that I could trust her. She
wanted to revenge herself upon her husband. She wanted to hit him wher