"HERMAN, YOU WILL NOT DESERT ME?"
"Now is my time," muttered Dermoyne to himself, and at once he entered the passage, which branched from the head of the stairs, and led to the eastern wing of the mansion. How his heart beat, how his blood bounded in his veins, as he drew near the open door at the extremity of the passage!
On the threshold he paused—his form shrouded by the darkness, but the light from within the room shining upon his forehead—he paused and took a single glance at the scene which was disclosed to his vision.
Never till his dying hour shall he forget that scene.
A small apartment, with windows shut and sealed like the doors of a sepulcher.—On a small table, amid vials and surgical instruments, stands a light, whose rays tremble over the bed, which occupied the greater part of the room. Above the bed, from the darkly papered walls, smiles a picture of the Virgin Mary, while beneath, by the folds of the coverlet, you may trace the outlines of a human form.
Beside the bed stands a slender man dressed in black, with a heavy pair of gold spectacles on his hooked nose. It is Corkins, the familiar spirit of the Madam. Corkins, whose slender frame, incased in black, reminds you of the raven, while his face with top-knot, gold spectacles, ferret-like eyes, and pointed beard, reminds you of the owl.
"Bad!" mutters Corkins, "bad!" and he gazes upon the occupant of the bed, knotting his fingers together like a man who is exceedingly perplexed.
The bed and its occupant? Ask us not to picture the full horror of the sight which Arthur saw (from his place of concealment), as Corkins gently drew the coverlet aside.
"Alice!" he did not pronounce the word with his lips, but his heart uttered it—it was echoed in the depths of his soul.
He saw the pale face, and the sunny hair, which fell in a flood upon her bared shoulders. He saw the arms outspread, with the fingers trembling and working as with the impulse of a spasm. He saw the eyes which opened with a dead stare, and fixed vaguely upon the ceiling, had no look of life in their leaden glance. He saw the lips, which were colorless and almost covered with white foam. And as the sufferer moved her head, and flung it back upon the pillow, he saw her throat—no longer white and beautiful—but with swollen veins, writhing with torture, and starting from the discolored skin.