instant, I felt like a ghost myself. It seemed natural that ghosts,
if such there were, should spy me out, and appall my heart with their
presence. For there, in that old, haunted spot, where long years ago
the spectre of little Jacques had lifted its menacing finger, stood
the form of Marie, Madame C----. I knew it well; shuddering and
shivering myself, more like an intruder than one intruded upon, I laid
my hand upon the chill marble counter for support. It was no creation
of imagination; the figure laid its hand also upon the marble, and,
stretching over its gaunt neck, stood and peered into my eyes.

"Madame C----! Madame C----!" I cried; "what in the name of God would
you have of me?"

"Nothing," she answered,--"nothing of you,--and nothing in the name
of God. Oh, you need not shudder at me,--Christine C----! I know _you_
well enough. You haven't got over your old tricks yet. I'm no ghost,
though. Mayhap you'd rather I'd be, for all your nerves, eh?"--and she
shook her head in the old vengeful, threatening way.

It was true enough. "What evil atmosphere surrounded me? What fell
snare environed me? I looked about like a hunted animal brought to
bay,--like a robber suddenly entrapped in the midst of his ill-gotten
gains. For this was no dead woman, but a living vengeance, more
terrible than death, brought to my very door. Some unseen power, it
seemed, full of evil influence, full of malignant justice, stretched
its long arms through my life, and would not let me by any means
escape to peace, to rest. A direful vision of horrible struggles yet
to come--of want, despair, disgrace in reservation--sickened my soul.

"I will call--I will call," said I, gasping,--"I will call Monsieur
C----; he"----

"Don't, don't, I beg of you!" she cried, catching me by the sleeve,
with a sardonic laugh; low, whispering, full of direful meaning, it
stealthily echoed through the saloon. "Don't disturb the good man. He
sleeps so soundly after his well-spent days! _He_ doesn't have any bad
dreams, I fancy,--rid of such a troublesome, vicious wife,--a wife who
harassed her husband to death, and murdered her little boy,--he sleeps
sound, doesn't he? And yet--I declare, in the name of God, Christine
C----,"--and she lifted up her bony finger like an avenging
fate,--"_he did it_!"

I had been endeavoring to calm myself while this woman of spectral
face and form stared at me with her maniac eye across the counter. I
had succeeded. At any