ed them, and to none of
which her hand was stranger, his memory of the love that was between her
and her mother, his picture of the sacred life led by those two above
stairs, all gave the lie to it! Her subjection to Basterga, her
submission to contumely and to insult--there must be a reason for these,
a natural and innocent reason could he hit on it. The strange
occurrences of the night, the blasphemous words, the mocking laughter,
at the worst they might not import a mastery over her. He shuddered as
he recalled them, they rang in his ears and brain, the vividness of his
memory of them was remarkable. But they might not have relation to her.

He stood long in moody thought, but his ears never for an instant
relaxed their vigil, their hearkening for he knew not what. At length he
passed into his bedcloset, and cooled his hot face with water and
repaired his dress. Coming out again, he found the house still quiet,
the door as he had left it, the daylight pouring in through the
aperture. No one was moving, he was still safe from interruption; and a
curiosity to visit the passage above and learn if aught abnormal was to
be seen, took possession of him. It was just possible that Basterga had
not returned; that the key still lay where he had dropped it!

He opened the door of the staircase and listened. He heard nothing, and
he stole half-way up the flight and again stood. Still all was silent.
He mounted more boldly then, and he was within four steps of the
top--whence, turning his head a little, he could command the
passage--when a sound arrested him. It was a sound easily explicable
though it startled him; for a moment later Anne Royaume appeared at the
foot of the upper flight of stairs, and moved along the passage towards
him.

She did not see him, and he could have escaped unnoticed, had he retired
at once. But he stood fixed to the spot by something in her appearance;
a something that, as she moved slowly towards him, fancying herself
alone, filled him with dread, and with something worse than
dread--suspicion.

For if ever woman looked as if she had come from a witch's Sabbath, if
ever girl, scarce more than child, walked as if she had plucked the
fruit of the Tree and savoured it bitter, it was the girl before him.
Despair--it seemed to him--rode her like a hag. Dejection, fear, misery,
were in her whole bearing. Her eyes looked out from black hollows, her
cheeks were pallid, her mouth was nerveless. Three slee