e! I am firmer on my feet to-night than I was last
week!"

She presses her arms to her breast, something like a tremor agitates the
gray shape, and her head is slightly raised. Her position and demeanor,
though she utters not a word, denote intense longing.

The blood rushes to my head--I must go a step nearer to her--I must!

"If I dance with you, it will be only on one condition!"

With a profound sigh her bosom heaves, her arms fall to her side, her
body is humbly bent forward as if in complete surrender, and as if to
say: Ask what you will!

"My condition is that you afterward reveal yourself."

She nods stiffly, like a marionette.

"Swear to it!"

She raises her arm for the oath, but the gray folds still conceal her
hand.

"Woe betide you if you deceive me!"

She shakes her head, and repeats the passionate gesture of entreaty. Her
slender form trembles with feverish impatience, and the wonderful eyes
seem to plead, in extreme urgency: Come quickly!

I put out my arms--

Once more does the terrible woman rush at me, once more am I held in
that mad embrace, once more--on the wings of the wind--do we dash round
the room! And once more are all my senses lost in the fiendish whirl!

I attempt to struggle, would pit the abounding strength of my youth
against the woman and subdue her. In vain! I can think, I can act, no
longer. My whole being is in a swoon, and I am conscious of nothing but
two icy lips pressed upon mine with a vehemence calculated to draw my
very life out of me.

A shudder seizes me, and the fear of death, and then--again that blow on
my shoulders--

I feel as if a pair of iron clamps had been taken off me and I had been
freed, and I sink down upon a sofa.

A laughing, jeering crowd surrounds me, shouting:

"The sailor is crazy! He has gone out of his mind!"

Have I again been dancing alone in public?

I jump up in a rage, and exclaim, as I toss back my dishevelled hair
from my burning brow:

"Abominable trickery! Let me pass! Let me get my hands on her, and
unmask her!"

Something rings on the floor. It has fallen from my hand, hitherto
clenched and just now opened. Triumphantly I snatch it up, exulting:

"Her cross! Ha! that shall be my clue!"

On this occasion, too, no trace of the mysterious nun was to be found.
It was at first superciliously assumed, as before, that I must be drunk
or insane, but my serious mood and energetic investigations soon altered
that notion. I