. But, if, when the moment
comes for you to take me away, I refuse to go with you--well you must
carry me off by force!"

"Are you afraid that you will change your mind, Christine?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head in an odd fashion. "He is a
demon!" And she shivered and nestled in his arms with a moan. "I am
afraid now of going back to live with him ... in the ground!"

"What compels you to go back, Christine?"

"If I do not go back to him, terrible misfortunes may happen! ... But
I can't do it, I can't do it! ... I know one ought to be sorry for
people who live underground ... But he is too horrible! And yet the
time is at hand; I have only a day left; and, if I do not go, he will
come and fetch me with his voice. And he will drag me with him,
underground, and go on his knees before me, with his death's head. And
he will tell me that he loves me! And he will cry! Oh, those tears,
Raoul, those tears in the two black eye-sockets of the death's head! I
can not see those tears flow again!"

She wrung her hands in anguish, while Raoul pressed her to his heart.

"No, no, you shall never again hear him tell you that he loves you!
You shall not see his tears! Let us fly, Christine, let us fly at
once!"

And he tried to drag her away, then and there. But she stopped him.

"No, no," she said, shaking her head sadly. "Not now! ... It would be
too cruel ... let him hear me sing to-morrow evening ... and then we
will go away. You must come and fetch me in my dressing-room at
midnight exactly. He will then be waiting for me in the dining-room by
the lake ... we shall be free and you shall take me away ... You must
promise me that, Raoul, even if I refuse; for I feel that, if I go back
this time, I shall perhaps never return."

And she gave a sigh to which it seemed to her that another sigh, behind
her, replied.

"Didn't you hear?"

Her teeth chattered.

"No," said Raoul, "I heard nothing."

"It is too terrible," she confessed, "to be always trembling like this!
... And yet we run no danger here; we are at home, in the sky, in the
open air, in the light. The sun is flaming; and night-birds can not
bear to look at the sun. I have never seen him by daylight ... it must
be awful! ... Oh, the first time I saw him! ... I thought that he was
going to die."

"Why?" asked Raoul, really frightened at the aspect which this strange
confidence was taking.

"BECAUSE I HAD SEEN HIM!"

This time