to succumb, notwithstanding the secret
uneasiness under which I was laboring. So I let my eyes continue to
roam, till they fell upon the one thing moving in the room. This was a
man's foot, which I now saw projecting from behind the drapery through
which I had seen the white hand glide. It was swinging up and down in an
impatient way, so out of keeping with the emotions perceptible on this
side of the drapery that I felt forced to ask myself what sort of person
this could be who thus kept watch and ward with such very commonplace
impatience over a creature who was able to hold every other person in
her presence under a spell. The drapery did not give up its secrets, and
again I yielded to the fascinations of Madame's face.

There was a change in it; the eyes no longer looked my way, but into
space, which seemed to hold for them some terrible and heart-rend-ing
vision. The lips, which had been closed, were now parted, and from them
issued a breath which soon formed itself into words.

"'Vengeance is mine! I will repay,' saith the Lord." What passionate
utterance was this? The voice that had been musical now rang with
jangling discord. The swinging of the foot behind the drapery ceased.
Madame spoke on:

"Through pain, sorrow, blood and death shall victory come. Life for
life, pang for pang, scorn for scorn!"

The swinging foot disappeared, and the small white hand passed quickly
through the curtain and rested again upon the forehead of Madame. But
without a calming effect this time. On the contrary, it seemed to urge
and incite her, for she broke into a new strain, speaking rapidly,
wildly, as if she lived in what she saw, or, what was doubtless truer,
had lived in it and was but recalling her own past in one of those
terrible hours of memory that recur on the border-land of dreams.

"I see a child, a girl. She is young; she is beautiful. Men love her,
many men, but she loves only one. He is of the North; she is of the
South. He is icy like his clime; she is fiery like her skies. The fire
cannot warm the ice. It is the ice puts out the fire! Woe! woe!"

The left hand came from the drapery; found its way to the left temple
of the woman. But it, too, was ineffectual. Hurriedly, madly, the words
went on, tripping each other up in their haste and passion. The voice
now became hoarse with rage.

"The girl is now a woman. A child is given her. The man demands the
child. She will not give it up. He curses it; he curses