'

She caught him by the arm, and drew him away from the crowded colonnade
into the solitary middle space of the square. 'Now tell me!' she said
eagerly. 'Here, where nobody is near us. How am I interested in it?
How? how?'

Still holding his arm, she shook him in her impatience to hear the
coming disclosure. For a moment he hesitated. Thus far, amused by her
ignorant belief in herself, he had merely spoken in jest. Now, for the
first time, impressed by her irresistible earnestness, he began to
consider what he was about from a more serious point of view. With her
knowledge of all that had passed in the old palace, before its
transformation into an hotel, it was surely possible that she might
suggest some explanation of what had happened to his brother, and
sister, and himself. Or, failing to do this, she might accidentally
reveal some event in her own experience which, acting as a hint to a
competent dramatist, might prove to be the making of a play. The
prosperity of his theatre was his one serious object in life. 'I may
be on the trace of another "Corsican Brothers,"' he thought. 'A new
piece of that sort would be ten thousand pounds in my pocket, at least.'

With these motives (worthy of the single-hearted devotion to dramatic
business which made Francis a successful manager) he related, without
further hesitation, what his own experience had been, and what the
experience of his relatives had been, in the haunted hotel. He even
described the outbreak of superstitious terror which had escaped Mrs.
Norbury's ignorant maid. 'Sad stuff, if you look at it reasonably,' he
remarked. 'But there is something dramatic in the notion of the
ghostly influence making itself felt by the relations in succession, as
they one after another enter the fatal room--until the one chosen
relative comes who will see the Unearthly Creature, and know the
terrible truth. Material for a play, Countess--first-rate material for
a play!'

There he paused. She neither moved nor spoke. He stooped and looked
closer at her.

What impression had he produced? It was an impression which his utmost
ingenuity had failed to anticipate. She stood by his side--just as she
had stood before Agnes when her question about Ferrari was plainly
answered at last--like a woman turned to stone. Her eyes were vacant
and rigid; all the life in her face had faded out of it. Francis took
her by the hand. Her hand was as cold as the pavement that they were
standing o