ue Scribe. Here
a carriage awaited us and took us to the Bois. The night when we met
you was nearly fatal to me, for he is terribly jealous of you and I had
to tell him that you were soon going away ... Then, at last, after a
fortnight of that horrible captivity, during which I was filled with
pity, enthusiasm, despair and horror by turns, he believed me when I
said, 'I WILL COME BACK!'"

"And you went back, Christine," groaned Raoul.

"Yes, dear, and I must tell you that it was not his frightful threats
when setting me free that helped me to keep my word, but the harrowing
sob which he gave on the threshold of the tomb. ... That sob attached
me to the unfortunate man more than I myself suspected when saying
good-by to him. Poor Erik! Poor Erik!"

"Christine," said Raoul, rising, "you tell me that you love me; but you
had recovered your liberty hardly a few hours before you returned to
Erik! Remember the masked ball!"

"Yes; and do you remember those hours which I passed with you, Raoul
... to the great danger of both of us?"

"I doubted your love for me, during those hours."

"Do you doubt it still, Raoul? ... Then know that each of my visits to
Erik increased my horror of him; for each of those visits, instead of
calming him, as I hoped, made him mad with love! And I am so
frightened, so frightened! ..."

"You are frightened ... but do you love me? If Erik were good-looking,
would you love me, Christine?"

She rose in her turn, put her two trembling arms round the young man's
neck and said:

"Oh, my betrothed of a day, if I did not love you, I would not give you
my lips! Take them, for the first time and the last."

He kissed her lips; but the night that surrounded them was rent
asunder, they fled as at the approach of a storm and their eyes, filled
with dread of Erik, showed them, before they disappeared, high up above
them, an immense night-bird that stared at them with its blazing eyes
and seemed to cling to the string of Apollo's lyre.

Chapter XIII A Master-Stroke of the Trap-Door Lover

Raoul and Christine ran, eager to escape from the roof and the blazing
eyes that showed only in the dark; and they did not stop before they
came to the eighth floor on the way down.

There was no performance at the Opera that night and the passages were
empty. Suddenly, a queer-looking form stood before them and blocked
the road:

"No, not this way!"

And the form pointed to another passage