one after another at
intervals of perhaps half a minute, growing a little louder each time, a
little nearer.

Would the darkness never be broken? Would the cloud never pass? Minute
after minute went like weary hours, and still the moon was hid, still
the dead branches rattled clatteringly on the high windows.
Unconsciously she moved, as under a magician's spell, down to the
choir-rail, straining her eyes to pierce the thick night. And the step,
it was very near! Ah, the moon at last! A white ray fell through the
westernmost window, painting a bar of light on the floor of sagging
stone. Then a second bar, then a third, and a fourth, and for a moment
Heloise could have cried out with relief, for nothing broke the lines of
light,--no figure, no shadow. In another moment came a step, and from
the shadow of the last column appeared in the pallid moonlight the
figure of a man. The girl stared breathless, the moonlight falling on
her as she stood rigid against the low parapet. Another step and
another, and she saw before her--was it ghost or living man?--a white
mad face staring from matted hair and beard, a tall thin figure half
clothed in rags, limping as it stepped towards her with wounded feet.
From the dead face stared mad eyes that gleamed like the eyes of a cat,
fixed on hers with insane persistence, holding her, fascinating her as a
cat fascinates a bird.

One more step,--it was close before her now! those awful, luminous eyes
dilating and contracting in awful palpitations. And the moon was going
out; the shadows swept one by one over the windows; she stared at the
moonlit face for a last fascinated glance--Mother of God! it was---- The
shadow swept over them, and now only remained the blazing eyes and the
dim outline of a form that crouched waveringly before her as a cat
crouches, drawing its vibrating body together for the spring that blots
out the life of the victim.

In another instant the mad thing would leap; but just as the quiver
swept over the crouching body, Heloise gathered all her strength into
one action of desperate terror.

"Jean, stop!"

The thing crouched before her paused, chattering softly to itself; then
it articulated dryly, and with all the trouble of a learning child, the
one word, "_Chantez!_"

Without a thought, Heloise sang; it was the first thing that she
remembered, an old Provencal song that d'Yriex had always loved. While
she sang, the poor mad creature lay huddled at her feet, se