e darkness Giuliana's voice spoke again, hoarsely now and
trembling.

"It will be Astorre," she said, with conviction. "At this hour it can
be none else. I suspected when I saw him talking to that boy at the gate
this afternoon that he was setting a spy upon me, to warn him wherever
he was lurking, did the need arise."

"But how should the boy know...?" I began, when she interrupted me
almost impatiently.

"The boy saw Messer Gambara ride up. He waited for no more, but went at
once to warn Astorre. He has been long in coming," she added in the tone
of one who is still searching for the exact explanation of the thing
that is happening. And then, suddenly and very urgently, "Go, go--go
quickly!" she bade me.

As in the dark I was groping my way towards the door she spoke again:

"Why does he not knock? For what does he wait?" Immediately, from
the stairs, came a terrific answer to her question--the unmistakable,
slip-slopping footstep of the doctor.

I halted, and for an instant stood powerless to move. How he had entered
I could not guess, nor did I ever discover. Sufficient was the awful
fact that he was in.

I was ice-cold from head to foot. Then I was all on fire and groping
forward once more whilst those footsteps, sinister and menacing as the
very steps of Doom, came higher and nearer.

At last I found the door and wrenched it open. I stayed to close it
after me, and already at the end of the passage beat the reflection of
the light Fifanti carried. A second I stood there hesitating which way
to turn. My first thought was to gain my own chamber. But to attempt it
were assuredly to run into his arms. So I turned, and went as swiftly
and stealthily as possible towards the library.

I was all but in when he turned the corner of the passage, and so caught
sight of me before I had closed the door.

I stood in the library, where the lamp still burned, sweating, panting,
and trembling. For even as he had had a glimpse of me, so had I had a
glimpse of him, and the sight was terrifying to one in my situation.

I had seen, his tall, gaunt figure bending forward in his eager, angry
haste. In one hand he carried a lanthorn; a naked sword in the other.
His face was malign and ghastly, and his bald, egg-like head shone
yellow. The fleeting glimpse he had of me drew from him a sound between
a roar and a snarl, and with quickened feet he came slip-slopping down
the passage.

I had meant, I think, to play the fox: to