e flashed across his mind another thought or
two as to his future career,--another idea about the pistol, which
still lay upon the table. Why should he let the intruder in, and
undergo the nuisance of a disagreeable interview, if the end of all
things might come in time to save him from such trouble? There he lay
for ten minutes thinking, and then the low single knock was heard
again. He jumped upon his feet, and his eyes were full of fire. He
knew that it was useless to bid her go and leave him. She would sit
there, if it were through the whole night. Should he open the door
and strangle her, and pass out over her with the pistol in his hand,
so that he might make that other reckoning which he desired to
accomplish, and then never come back any more?

He took a turn through the room, and then walked gently up to the
door, and undid the lock. He did not open the door, nor did he bid
his visitor enter, but having made the way easy for her if she chose
to come in, he walked back to the sofa and threw himself on it again.
As he did so, he passed his hand across the table so as to bring the
pistol near to himself at the place where he would be lying. She
paused a moment after she had heard the sound of the key, and then
she made her way into the room. He did not at first speak to her. She
closed the door very gently, and then, looking around, came up to the
foot of the sofa. She paused a moment, waiting for him to address
her; but as he said nothing, but lay there looking at her, she was
the first to speak. "George," she said, "what am I to do?"

She was a woman of about thirty years of age, dressed poorly, in old
garments, but still with decency, and with some attempt at feminine
prettiness. There were flowers in the bonnet on her head, though
the bonnet had that unmistakable look of age which is quite as
distressing to bonnets as it is to women, and the flowers themselves
were battered and faded. She had long black ringlets on each cheek,
hanging down much below her face, and brought forward so as to hide
in some degree the hollowness of her jaws. Her eyes had a peculiar
brightness, but now they left on those who looked at her cursorily
no special impression as to their colour. They had been blue,--that
dark violet blue, which is so rare, but is sometimes so lovely. Her
forehead was narrow, her mouth was small, and her lips were thin;
but her nose was perfect in its shape, and, by the delicacy of its
modelling, had give