ne, the card seemed
as white as before, and empty of all meaning until one held it up and
examined it intently. Then the pictures showed.

And between the two there was a third picture, which somehow seemed to
show, at the same time, two faces in one, two souls, my sister said, the
kindly visaged man we first had seen, and then the fiend.

"Now my sister asked for pen and ink and I gave her my pocket pen which
was filled with purple ink. Handing this to the _kulos_-man she bade him
write under the first picture: 'Thus I killed my babe.' And under the
second picture: 'Thus I robbed my friend.' And under the third, the one
that was between the other two: 'This is the soul of Richard Burwell.'
An odd thing about this writing was that it was in the same old French
the creature had used in speech, and yet Burwell knew no French.

"My sister was about to finish with the creature when a new idea took
her, and she said, looking at It as before:--'Of all thy crimes which
one is the worst? Speak, I command thee!'

"Then the fiend told how once It had killed every soul in a house of
holy women and buried the bodies in a cellar under a heavy door.

"Where was the house?'

"'At No. 19 Rue Picpus, next to the old graveyard.'

"'And when was this?'

"Here the fiend seemed to break into fierce rebellion, writhing on the
floor with hideous contortions, and pouring forth words that meant
nothing to me, but seemed to reach my sister's understanding, for she
interrupted from time to time, with quick, stern words that finally
brought It to subjection.

"'Enough,' she said, 'I know all,' and then she spoke some words again,
her eyes fixed as before, and the reverse change came. Before us stood
once more the honest-looking, fine-appearing gentleman, Richard Burwell,
of New York.

"'Excuse me, madame,' he said, awkwardly, but with deference; 'I must
have dosed a little. I am not myself to-night.'

"'No,' said my sister, 'you have not been yourself to-night.'

"A little later I accompanied the man to the Continental Hotel, where he
was stopping, and, returning to my sister, I talked with her until late
into the night. I was alarmed to see that she was wrought to a nervous
tension that augured ill for her health. I urged her to sleep, but she
would not.

"'No,' she said, 'think of the awful responsibility that rests upon me.'
And then she went on with her strange theories and explanations, of
which I understood only that here was