you want?"

"To speak to you."

"Come in then," she said.

She did not turn to him again until they stood together in the room
above, and the door was shut. Then she asked him a second time what he
wanted.

"Are we alone?" he returned, staring suspiciously about him.

"My daughter is above," she answered. "There is no one else in the
house."

"And you are poor?"

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, and by a movement of her hands
seemed to put the room in evidence; one or two pictures, standing on
easels, and a few common painter's properties redeemed it from utter
bareness, utter misery, yet left it cold and faded.

Nevertheless, his next question took her by surprise. "What rent do you
pay?" he asked harshly.

"What rent?" she repeated, shaken out of her moodiness.

"Yes. How many crowns?"

"Twenty," she answered mechanically. What was his aim? What did he want?

"A year?"

"Yes, a year."

The man had a round shaven whitish face that sat in the circle of a
tightly tied Steinkirk cravat, like an ivory ball in a cup; and short
hair, that might on occasion line a periwig. Notwithstanding his pistol,
he had rather the air of a tradesman than a soldier until you met his
eyes, which flashed with a keen glitter that belied his smug face and
shaven cheeks. Those eyes caught the widow's eyes as he answered her,
and held them.

"Twenty crowns a year," he said. "Then listen. I will give you two
hundred crowns for this house--for one night."

"For this house for one night?" she repeated, thinking she had not heard
aright.

"For this house, for one night!" he answered.

Then she understood. She was quick-witted, she had lived long in the
house and knew it. Without more she knew that God or the devil had put
that which she sought into her hands; and her first impulse was to pure
joy. The thirst for vengeance welled up, hot and resistless. Now she
could be avenged on all; on the hard-hearted tyrant who had rejected her
prayer, on the sleek dames who would point the finger at her child, on
the smug town that had looked askance at her all these years--that had
set her beyond the pale of its dull grovelling pleasures, and shut her
up in that lonely House on the Wall! Now--now she had it in her hand to
take tenfold for one. Her face so shone at the thought that the man
watching her felt a touch of misgiving; though he was of the boldest or
he had not been there on that errand.

"When?" she said. "When?"