all the time she knew that her pursuer was
close behind, and heard his voice mingled with angry cries of
remonstrance from the man they had left below.

Suddenly a door close to Dorcas opened, and a new terror was
revealed to her horror-stricken gaze. A gaunt, tall figure, wrapped
in a long white garment that looked like grave clothes, sprang out
into the stairway with a shriek that was like nothing human. Dorcas
sank, almost fainting with terror, to the ground; but the
spectre--for such it seemed to her--paid no heed to her, but sprang
upon her pursuer, who had at that moment come up, and the next
moment had his arms wound about him in a bearlike embrace, whilst
all the time he was laughing an awful laugh. Then lifting the
unfortunate young man off his feet with a strength that was almost
superhuman, he bore him rapidly down the stairs and rushed out with
him into the street.

All this happened in so brief a moment of time that Dorcas had not
even time to regain her feet, or to utter the scream of terror
which came to her lips. But as she found breath to utter her cry,
another door opened and a scared face looked out, whilst a woman's
voice asked in lamentable accents:

"What do you here, maiden? What has happened to bring any person
into this shut-up house? Child, child, how didst thou obtain
entrance here? The plague is in this house, and we are straitly
shut up!"

Before Dorcas could answer for fright and the confusion of her
faculties, a pale-faced watchman came hurrying up the stairs.

"Where is the maid?" he asked, and then seeing Dorcas he grasped
her by the wrist and cried, "Unless you wish to be shut up for a
month, come away instantly. This is a stricken house. What
possessed you to seek shelter here? Better anything than that.

"As for your son, mistress, he is fled forth into the street; I
could not hinder him. We are undone if the constable comes. But if
we can get him back again ere that, all may be well. I will let you
forth to lead him hither if he will listen to your voice."

From the room whence the sick man had appeared a frightened face
looked forth, and a half-tipsy old crone whimpered out:

"The fault was none of mine. I had but just dropped asleep for a
moment. But when a man has the strength of ten what can one poor
old woman do?"

Without paying any heed to this creature, the watchman and the
mother of the plague-stricken man, together with Dorcas, who
hurriedly told her tale as th