to the
landing, and by the light of an arrow-slit which dimly lit the ruinous
place found the door he had described, and tried it with my hand. It
was locked, but I heard someone moan in the room, and a step crossed
the floor, as if he or another came to the door and listened. I knocked,
hearing my heart beat in the silence. At last a voice quite strange to
me cried, 'Who is it?'

'A friend,' I muttered, striving to dull my voice that they might not
hear me below.

'A friend!' the bitter answer came. 'Go! You have made a mistake! We
have no friends.'

'It is I, M. de Marsac,' I rejoined, knocking more imperatively. 'I
would see M. de Bruhl. I must see him.'

The person inside, at whose identity I could now make a guess, uttered
a low exclamation, and still seemed to hesitate. But on my repeating my
demand I heard a rusty bolt withdrawn, and Madame de Bruhl, opening the
door a few inches, showed her face in the gap. 'What do you want?' she
murmured jealously.

Prepared as I was to see her, I was shocked by the change in her
appearance, a change which even that imperfect light failed to hide. Her
blue eyes had grown larger and harder, and there were dark marks under
them. Her face, once so brilliant, was grey and pinched; her hair had
lost its golden lustre. 'What do you want?' she repeated, eyeing me
fiercely.

'To see him,' I answered.

'You know?' she muttered. 'You know that he--'

I nodded.

And you still want to come in? My God! Swear you will not hurt him?'

'Heaven forbid!' I said; and on that she held the door open that I might
enter. But I was not half-way across the room before she had passed me,
and was again between me and the wretched makeshift pallet. Nay, when
I stood and looked down at him, as he moaned and rolled in senseless
agony, with livid face and distorted features (which the cold grey light
of that miserable room rendered doubly appalling), she hung over him and
fenced him from me: so that looking on him and her, and remembering how
he had treated her, and why he came to be in this place, I felt unmanly
tears rise to my eyes. The room was still a prison, a prison with broken
mortar covering the floor and loopholes for windows; but the captive was
held by other chains than those of force. When she might have gone free,
her woman's love surviving all that he had done to kill it, chained
her to his side with fetters which old wrongs and present danger were
powerless to break.

It was