nto
their room.

He was a man of middle size, clean shaven, with small, bright, yellowish
eyes, which shone with restless eagerness from under thick, bushy brows.
Although he had lived for years in Paris, he was dressed like a man from
the country, wearing a flowered silk vest, and a long frock-coat with an
immense collar.

"Quick, Chevassat!" he cried, with a voice full of trouble. "Take your
lamp, and follow me; an accident has happened upstairs."

He was so seriously disturbed, although generally very calm and cool,
that the two Chevassats were thoroughly frightened.

"An accident!" exclaimed the woman; "that was all that was wanting. But
pray, what has happened, dear M. Ravinet?"

"How do I know? This very moment, as I was just coming out of my room, I
thought I heard the death-rattle of a dying person. It was in the fifth
story. Of course I ran up a few steps, I listened. All was silent. I
went down again, thinking I had been mistaken; and at once I heard again
a sighing, a sobbing--I can't tell you exactly what; but it sounded
exactly like the last sigh of a person in agony, and at the point of
death."

"And then?"

"Then I ran down to tell you, and ask you to come up. I am not sure,
you understand; but I think I could swear it was the voice of Miss
Henrietta,--that pretty young girl who lives up there. Well, are you
coming?"

But they did not stir.

"Miss Henrietta is not in her room," said Mrs. Chevassat coldly. "She
went out just now, and told me she would not be back till nine o'clock.
My dear M. Ravinet, you must have been mistaken; you had a ringing in
your ears, or"--

"No, I am sure I was not mistaken! But never mind; we must see what it
is."

During this conversation, the door of the room had been open; and
several of the lodgers, hearing the voice of the merchant and the
exclamations of the woman as they crossed the hall, had stopped and
listened.

"Yes, we must see what it is," they repeated.

Master Chevassat dared no longer oppose the general desire so
peremptorily expressed,--

"Let us go then, since you will have it _so_," he sighed.

And, taking up his lamp, he began to ascend the stairs, followed by the
merchant, his wife, and five or six other persons.

The steps of all these people were heard all over the house; and from
story to story the lodgers opened their doors to see what was going on.
And, when they heard that something was likely to happen, they almost
all left th