feet, and died. There is no mistaking the features of death: the
filmy eye and dropt jaw once seen, are recognised whenever we meet them
again. Yet, spite of our belief, we cling to hope; and the distracted
mother called on the physician, in accents which might have moved a
statue, to say that her darling was not dead, not quite dead--that
something might still be done--that it could not be all over. Silently
he satisfied himself that no throb of life still fluttered in that
little frame.

"It is, indeed, all over," he said, in tones scarce above a whisper; and
pressing my hand kindly, he said, "comfort your poor wife"; and so, after
a momentary pause, he left the room.

This blow had smitten me with stunning suddenness. I looked at the dead
child, and from her to her poor mother. Grief and pity were both
swallowed up in transports of fury and detestation with which the
presence in my house of the wretch who had wrought all this destruction
and misery filled my soul. My heart swelled with ungovernable rage; for a
moment my habitual fear of him was neutralised by the vehemence of these
passions. I seized a candle in silence, and mounted the stairs. The sight
of the accursed cat, flitting across the lobby, and the loneliness of the
hour, made me hesitate for an instant. I had, however, gone so far, that
shame sustained me. Overcoming a momentary thrill of dismay, and
determined to repel and defy the influence that had so long awed me, I
knocked sharply at the door, and, almost at the same instant, pushed it
open, and entered our lodger's chamber.

He had had no candle in the room, and it was lighted only by the
"darkness visible" that entered through the window. The candle which I
held very imperfectly illuminated the large apartment; but I saw his
spectral form floating, rather than walking, back and forward in front of
the windows.

At sight of him, though I hated him more than ever, my instinctive fear
returned. He confronted me, and drew nearer and nearer, without speaking.
There was something indefinably fearful in the silent attraction which
seemed to be drawing him to me. I could not help recoiling, little by
little, as he came toward me, and with an effort I said--

"You know why I have come: the child--she's dead!"

"Dead--ha!--_dead_--is she?" he said, in his odious, mocking tone.

"Yes--dead!" I cried, with an excitement which chilled my very marrow
with horror; "and _you_ have killed her, as you killed