what I had written with the closest attention. But his inveterate
suspicion of me was not set at rest, even yet.

"Are you likely to come this way again?" he asked.

I pointed to the final lines of my writing, and got up to go.

This assertion of my will against his roused him. He stopped me at the
door--not by a motion of his hand but by the mastery of his look. The dim
candlelight afforded me no help in determining the color of his eyes.
Dark, large, and finely set in his head, there was a sinister passion in
them, at that moment, which held me in spite of myself. Still as
monotonous as ever, his voice in some degree expressed the frenzy that
was in him, by suddenly rising in its pitch when he spoke to me next.

"Mr. Roylake, I love her. Mr. Roylake, I am determined to marry her. Any
man who comes between me and that cruel girl--ah, she's as hard as one of
her father's millstones; it's the misery of my life, it's the joy of my
life, to love her--I tell you, young sir, any man who comes between
Cristel and me does it at his peril. Remember that."

I had no wish to give offence--but his threatening me in this manner was
so absurd that I gave way to the impression of the moment, and laughed.
He stepped up to me, with such an expression of demoniacal rage and
hatred in his face that he became absolutely ugly in an instant.

"I amuse you, do I?" he said. "You don't know the man you're trifling
with. You had better know me. You _shall_ know me." He turned away, and
walked up and down the wretched little room, deep in thought. "I don't
want this matter between us to end badly," he said, interrupting his
meditations--then returning to them again--and then once more addressing
me. "You're young, you're thoughtless; but you don't look like a bad
fellow. I wonder whether I can trust you? Not one man in a thousand would
do it. Never mind. I'm the one man in ten thousand who does it. Mr.
Gerard Roylake, I'm going to trust you."

With this incoherent expression of a resolution unknown to me, he
unlocked a shabby trunk hidden in a corner, and took from it a small
portfolio.

"Men of your age," he resumed, "seldom look below the surface. Learn that
valuable habit, sir--and begin by looking below the surface of Me." He
forced the portfolio into my hand. Once more, his beautiful eyes held me
with their irresistible influence; they looked at me with an expression
of sad and solemn warning. "Discover for yourself," he said, "what