shuddering universe was the interior of the
lighted room and the woman in black sitting in the light of the eight
candle-flames. They flung around her an intolerable brilliance which
hurt his eyes, seemed to sear his very brain with the radiation of
infernal heat. It was some time before his scorched eyes made out
Ricardo seated on the floor at some little distance, his back to the
doorway, but only partly so; one side of his upturned face showing the
absorbed, all forgetful rapture of his contemplation.

The grip of Mr. Jones's hard claw drew Heyst back a little. In the roll
of thunder, swelling and subsiding, he whispered in his ear a sarcastic:
"Of course!"

A great shame descended upon Heyst--the shame of guilt, absurd and
maddening. Mr. Jones drew him still farther back into the darkness of
the veranda.

"This is serious," he went on, distilling his ghostly venom into Heyst's
very ear. "I had to shut my eyes many times to his little flings; but
this is serious. He has found his soul-mate. Mud souls, obscene and
cunning! Mud bodies, too--the mud of the gutter! I tell you, we are
no match for the vile populace. I, even I, have been nearly caught. He
asked me to detain you till he gave me the signal. It won't be you
that I'll have to shoot, but him. I wouldn't trust him near me for five
minutes after this!"

He shook Heyst's arm a little.

"If you had not happened to mention the creature, we should both have
been dead before morning. He would have stabbed you as you came down
the steps after leaving me and then he would have walked up to me and
planted the same knife between my ribs. He has no prejudices. The viler
the origin, the greater the freedom of these simple souls!"

He drew a cautious, hissing breath and added in an agitated murmur: "I
can see right into his mind, I have been nearly caught napping by his
cunning."

He stretched his neck to peer into the room from the side. Heyst, too,
made a step forward, under the slight impulse of that slender hand
clasping his hand with a thin, bony grasp.

"Behold!" the skeleton of the crazy bandit jabbered thinly into his ear
in spectral fellowship. "Behold the simple, Acis kissing the sandals
of the nymph, on the way to her lips, all forgetful, while the menacing
life of Polyphemus already sounds close at hand--if he could only hear
it! Stoop a little."

CHAPTER TWELVE

On returning to the Heyst bungalow, rapid as if on wings, Ricardo
found Lena wa