been betrayed, as all betrayers are. It has been made known
that you are in this place, or were to be, or have been. If I live, I
saw my husband in a carriage in the street to-night!'

'Strumpet, it's false!' cried Carker.

At the moment, the bell rang loudly in the hall. He turned white, as she
held her hand up like an enchantress, at whose invocation the sound had
come.

'Hark! do you hear it?'

He set his back against the door; for he saw a change in her, and
fancied she was coming on to pass him. But, in a moment, she was gone
through the opposite doors communicating with the bed-chamber, and they
shut upon her.

Once turned, once changed in her inflexible unyielding look, he felt
that he could cope with her. He thought a sudden terror, occasioned
by this night-alarm, had subdued her; not the less readily, for her
overwrought condition. Throwing open the doors, he followed, almost
instantly.

But the room was dark; and as she made no answer to his call, he
was fain to go back for the lamp. He held it up, and looked round,
everywhere, expecting to see her crouching in some corner; but the
room was empty. So, into the drawing-room and dining-room he went,
in succession, with the uncertain steps of a man in a strange place;
looking fearfully about, and prying behind screens and couches; but she
was not there. No, nor in the hall, which was so bare that he could see
that, at a glance.

All this time, the ringing at the bell was constantly renewed, and those
without were beating at the door. He put his lamp down at a distance,
and going near it, listened. There were several voices talking together:
at least two of them in English; and though the door was thick, and
there was great confusion, he knew one of these too well to doubt whose
voice it was.

He took up his lamp again, and came back quickly through all the rooms,
stopping as he quitted each, and looking round for her, with the light
raised above his head. He was standing thus in the bed-chamber, when the
door, leading to the little passage in the wall, caught his eye. He went
to it, and found it fastened on the other side; but she had dropped a
veil in going through, and shut it in the door.

All this time the people on the stairs were ringing at the bell, and
knocking with their hands and feet.

He was not a coward: but these sounds; what had gone before; the
strangeness of the place, which had confused him, even in his return
from the hall; the fr