"What do you expect?" he thundered.
"I expect to receive a counterpart of this," she said, with deliberate emphasis, holding the magic vial steadily before his eyes.
For a second or two, the talisman appeared powerless, but only for so long. On a sudden his gaze contracted—he became fascinated, petrified—his face darkened, as if a tide of molten lead were projected through every vessel—and a heavy dew of agony stood in beads upon his puckered forehead. With all this horror was mingled a fury, if possible, more frightful still; every fibre of his face was quivering; the hand that was clenched and drawn back, as if it held a weapon to be hurled into her heart, was quivering too; his mouth seemed gasping in vain for words or voice; he resembled the malignant and tortured victim of a satanic possession; and this frightful dumb apparition was imperceptibly drawing nearer and nearer to her.
A sudden revulsion broke the horrid spell of which he was the slave; like one awaking from a nightmare, conscience-stricken, he uttered a trembling groan of agony, and with one hand upon his breast, the other clutched upon his forehead, he hurried, speechless, like a despairing, detected criminal, from the room.
IX.—THE UNTOLD SECRET.
Julie, who had heard high words as she traversed the apartments which lay en suite, paused in the lobby at the stair-head—a sort of œil de bœuf, to which several corridors converged, and with a lofty lantern-dome above, from which swung a cluster of rose-colored lamps.
Here she sat down upon a sofa, ill at ease on account of the scene which was then going on so near her; and, in the midst of her reverie, raising her eyes suddenly, she saw Monsieur Le Prun, the thick carpets rendering his tread perfectly noiseless, gliding by her with a countenance guilty and terrible beyond any thing that fancy had ever seen.
Without appearing to see her, like a spectre from the grave he came, passed, and vanished, leaving her frozen with horror, as if she had beheld a phantom from the dead and damned.
With steps winged with hideous alarm she sped through the intervening chambers to that in which she had left Lucille.
She was standing with an ashy smile of triumph on her face, and in her hand was still mechanically grasped the queer little vial with its four spires of gold.