head and saying--

'Oh, it won't be--it won't be--Oh no!--never!--it could not be!' And in
this stunned state Madame found me on her return.

But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of dread. The
'horror of great darkness' is disturbed by voices and illumed by sights.
There are periods of incapacity and collapse, followed by paroxysms
of active terror. Thus in my journey during those long hours I found
it--agonies subsiding into lethargies, and these breaking again into
frenzy. I sometimes wonder how I carried my reason safely through the
ordeal.

Madame locked the door, and amused herself with her own business, without
minding me, humming little nasal snatches of French airs, as she smirked on
her silken purchases displayed in the daylight. Suddenly it struck me that
it was very dark, considering how early it was. I looked at my watch;
it seemed to me a great effort of concentration to understand it. Four
o'clock, it said. Four o'clock! It would be dark at five--_night_ in one
hour!

'Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening?' I cried with my hand to my
forehead, like a person puzzled.

'Two three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four when I came
upstairs,' answered she, without interrupting her examination of a piece of
darned lace which she was holding close to her eyes at the window.

'Oh, Madame! _Madame!_ I'm frightened,' cried I, with a wild and piteous
voice, grasping her arm, and looking up, as shipwrecked people may their
last to heaven, into her inexorable eyes. Madame looked frightened too, I
thought, as she stared into my face. At last she said, rather angrily, and
shaking her arm loose--

'What you mean, cheaile?'

'Oh save me, Madame!--oh save me!--oh save me, Madame!' I pleaded, with the
wild monotony of perfect terror, grasping and clinging to her dress, and
looking up, with an agonised face, into the eyes of that shadowy Atropos.

'Save a you, indeed! Save! What _niaiserie_!'

'Oh, Madame! Oh, _dear_ Madame! for God's sake, only get me away--get me
from this, and I'll do everything you ask me all my life--I will--_indeed_,
Madame, I will! Oh save me! save me! _save_ me!'

I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my agony.

'And who told you, cheaile, you are in any danger?' demanded Madame,
looking down on me with a black and witchlike stare.

'I am, Madame--I am--in great danger! Oh, Madame, think of me--take pity on
me! I have none to help me--there