n with tremling hands on the table,
his head dropped on his arms beside it; and there was a long, feverish
silence.

At length he raised his haggard face, and, supporting it upon his
hands, he gazed at the figure in the chimney-corner; and began, in a
tone sullen and devoid of animation as November rain,--

"Why did you force yourself upon me?--not for Gnulemah's sake, I
think. Not for money,--you had none. Not for love of me either, I
fancy,--grisly harpy!

"Once I suspected you of being a spy. You walked among pitfalls then!
But what spy would sit for eighteen years without speech or movement?
You have been useful too. No one could have filled your place,--with
your one eye and dumb mouth!

"Did you hate Thor? were you my secret ally against him? But how could
you fathom my purposes enough even to help me? And what wrong has he
done you terrible enough for such revenge as mine? What human being,
except Manetho, could hold an unwavering purpose so many years? Have
you never pitied or relented? Sometimes I have almost wavered myself!

"What name and history have you buried, and never shown me? Why have
you spent your dumb life in this seclusion? You are a mystery,--yet a
mystery of my own making! I might as wisely dissect my violin to find
where lurks the music. A mass of wood and strings,--the music is from
me!

"Have you a thought of preventing the scheme I spoke of to-night?" The
Egyptian leaned far across the table, the better to scrutinize the
unanswering woman's face. Her eye met his with a steady intelligence
that disconcerted him.

"Are you a woman?" he muttered, drawing back, "and have you no pity on
the children whom you nursed in their infancy?--not any pity! as
implacable--almost more implacable than I? But think of her beauty and
innocence,--for is she not innocent as yet? Would you see her forever
ruined,--and stretch forth no saving hand?" Nurse moved her head up
and down, as in slow, deliberate assent. Manetho, beholding the
reflection in her of his own moral deformity, was filled with
abhorrence!

"More hideous within than without,--you demon! come to haunt me and
make me wicked as yourself. It was you snapped the chord of my
music,--that better spirit which had till then saved me from your
spells! My evil genius! I know you now, though never until this
moment."

This madman was not the first sinner who, happening to catch an
outside glimpse of his interior grime, has tried to cheat his sca