ince the last conversation I have recorded. But her face,
though it was now sensible, was pinched and white, and so drawn with
mortal fear that I believed her dying, and sprang to her, unable to
construe otherwise the pitiful look in her straining eyes.

'Madame,' I said, hastily passing my arm round her, and speaking with as
much encouragement as I could infuse into my voice, 'take comfort. I am
here. Your son.'

'Hush!' she muttered in answer, laying her feeble hand on my wrist and
continuing to look, not at me, but at the door. 'Listen, Gaston! Don't
you hear? There it is again. Again!'

For a moment I thought her mind still wandered, and I shivered, having
no fondness for hearing such things. Then I saw she was listening
intently to the sound which had attracted my notice. The step had
reached the landing by this time. The visitor, whoever it was, paused
there a moment, being in darkness, and uncertain, perhaps, of the
position of the door; but in a little while I heard him move forward
again, my mother's fragile form, clasped as it was in my embrace,
quivering with each step he took, as though his weight stirred the
house. He tapped at the door.

I had thought, while I listened and wondered, of more than one whom this
might be: the leech, Simon Fleix, Madame Bruhl, Fresnoy even. But as the
tap came, and I felt my mother tremble in my arms, enlightenment came
with it, and I pondered no more, I knew as well as if she hail spoken
and told me. There could be only one man whose presence had such power
to terrify her, only one whose mere step, sounding through the veil,
could drag her back to consciousness and fear! And that was the man who
had beggared her, who had traded so long on her terrors.

I moved a little, intending to cross the floor softly, that when he
opened the door he might find me face to face with him; but she detected
the movement, and, love giving her strength, she clung to my wrist so
fiercely that I had not the heart, knowing how slender was her hold on
life and how near the brink she stood, to break from her. I constrained
myself to stand still, though every muscle grew tense as a drawn
bowstring, and I felt the strong rage rising in my throat and choking me
as I waited for him to enter.

A log on the hearth gave way with a dull sound startling in the silence.
The man tapped again, and getting no answer, for neither of us spoke,
pushed the door slowly open, uttering before he showed himself th