door. She found his window easily, it was still lighted up, and
the shutters were not closed. God be praised, the saints were with her!
There he was!

She stood on tip-toe and looked in at the low window. He was sitting
at the table, just as she had pictured him to herself, pale and
hollow-cheeked, his face ravaged with passion. The lonely man had a
bottle and glass in front of him, and he filled his glass and drank it
off in one gulp, and filled it again, and then buried his face in his
hands and brooded like Mr. Tiralla used to do.

She knocked, but he did not hear her. Then she thumped with her fist so
that the window panes rattled.

He started up and came to the window. He uttered a suppressed cry in
his fear and joy at seeing her standing there. He tore the window open,
and his hands trembled as he stretched them out. She had come, come to
him? He stared at her with glassy eyes, his breath smelt of drink like
Mr. Tiralla's.

She was afraid of him, and still her distress drew her nearer and
nearer to him. "I've come to you--you," she said in a swift whisper.
She seized his hands imploringly. With a little help from him she swung
herself up, and stood beside him in the room.

There was his bed, there his sofa, there his desk and all his books.
She stared around with eyes in which, however, there was no interest.
She only wanted help, help, and she thought of nothing else.

He had closed the window and he now closed the shutters too. A gleam of
prudence had returned; what would people think if they saw her in his
room at that hour? He drew her to the old sofa, and she [Pg 257] let
him do so; he ventured to kiss her and she allowed him to do that too.

Something rose within her; in her shame and anguish she longed to
thrust him back, but--she had need of him, she had need of him. She
held her breath so as not to smell his. She suffered him to kiss her,
her lips tightly compressed, but when he drew nearer and nearer to her
in his intoxication she repulsed him. Then she recollected that she
would have to put up with it, for she dared not offend him, she must
bind him to her. She tried to find an excuse for her repulse; had he
not deceived her once before with the dish of mushrooms? Could she
really trust him again?

He swore solemnly that she could, glowing with desire.

Then she said, "Pan Tiralla must die, and you, you must help me."

"I--I?" he stammered, all at once sober. He was sorry for the man, he
ha