Propped upon a pillow, the dying Ninon—for she was dying now—regarded him with an awful expression in her hollow eyes.
"Do you remember me, madame?" he was heard to say, by those who loitered or listened without.
"But too well," moaned the patient.
"Yet fair ladies have often brief memories."
"And I have been your dupe! Begone, fiend—you are powerless, and I defy you!"
The old man uttered his chuckling laugh.
"Begone, I say, to that hell from hence you have come."
"Then I go not alone!" was the strange response, and there rung through the chamber a shriek of agony, and with it mingled the strange demoniac laughter of the little man in black. The listeners heard also the stamping of his feet, and exclamations of rage; then all became still—terribly still.
When the door, which had hitherto defied their efforts to force it, was opened, the stranger could nowhere be found; he had disappeared, hat, stick, spectacles and all; but they found Ninon, and she was no more.
The coverlet and other clothes were disordered, the silk hangings torn; the bed bore evidence that a fierce struggle had taken place; but great was the astonishment of all on beholding the rapid change that came over her remains, even while they gazed on them.