early to me. Now it let fall a timorous blade of
light along the floor. It reached Broussard's body. Its foot struck
him. It stooped, threw the light full upon him. Open fell the
concealing mantle, showing the barren stones, the corpse, the ghastly
upturned face of the strangled man.

The woman--for it was a woman--dropped to her knees beside him, called
him, felt of his clammy head, and suffered but a single scream of swift
affright to leave her lips. From the unhooded lanthorn burst out a
spreading yellow glow. Her scream awoke me to a consciousness of
reality. From my own unlocked tongue of terror came its answer. I
joined my voice to hers, defied the hush of slumbering centuries and
filled that quaking room with a perfect deluge of reverberating
shrieks. Many others, men, with cloaks, some having lights, some none,
rushed in behind the woman. From that time I knew nothing.

* * * * * *

I awakened from a dreamy languor; a subtle essence of perfume floated
through my senses. A gentle touch of some kindly hand was bathing my
temples. Fearful lest this sweet illusion vanish with the others, I
kept my eyes firmly closed, and soon abandoned myself wholly to the
subduing influences of natural slumber.

"Has he stirred, Florine?"

"No, Monsieur, but his head is cooler now--he sleeps, hush! Perhaps
another day he will be better. How he raved through the night. Poor,
young gentleman, he quite exhausted himself."

"Ah, well, Florine, he is young, and with such nurses as thou and
Nannette he will of a surety recover."

I turned my head and smiled a feeble recognition of Jerome and Florine.
The other woman I had never seen; she was much older than Florine and
had a kind, motherly face.

"What day is it?"

"The morning of Sunday."

It was Wednesday night when Jerome and I went to the ball.

I looked about me. The lodgings were those I had taken at the Austrian
Arms, yet much changed in little things. The vase of flowers there in
the window, the neat-swept hearth, the cheerful fire, and that
indefinable something which gives a touch of womanliness to a room.
Florine, perhaps.

"Ugh! I'm so glad to be here," and I shuddered at the remembrance of
my prison and suffering.

"Poor dear," said the older woman in a voice full of sympathy, "don't
worry; you are in comfort now, and will soon be strong again."

"Am I wounded in any wise?" I inquired, for I knew not the man