to draw more than one head from the neighboring windows. Had it been earlier, he would have found himself surrounded by a dozen ragged and importunate children; had it been later, he would have run the risk of being garroted by some skulking assassin; as it was, he stood there unmolested, eying the structure that held within its gloomy recesses the once handsome and captivating lover of Jacqueline Japha. He was not the only man who would have hesitated before entering there. Low and insignificant as the building appeared—and its two stories certainly looked dwarfish enough in comparison with the two lofty tenement houses that pressed it upon either side—there was something in its quiet, almost uninhabited aspect that awakened a vague apprehension of lurking danger. A face at a window would have been a relief; even the sight of a customer in the noisome groggery that occupied the ground floor. From the dwellings about, came the hum of voices and now and then the sound of a shrill laugh or a smothered cry, but from this house came nothing, unless it was the slow ooze of a stream of half-melted snow that found its way from under the broken-down doorway to the gutter beyond.
Stepping bravely forward, Mr. Sylvester entered the open door. A flight of bare and rickety steps met his eye. Ascending them, he found himself in a hall which must have been poorly lighted at any time, but which at this late hour was almost dark. It was not very encouraging, but pressing on, he stopped at a door and was about to knock, when his eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness, he detected standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the story above, the tall and silent figure of a woman. It was no common apparition. Like a sentinel at his post, or a spy on the outskirts of the enemy’s camp, she stood drawn up against the wall, her whole wasted form quivering with eagerness or some other secret passion; darkness on her brow and uncertainty on her lip. She was listening, or waiting, or both, and that with an entire absorption that prevented her from heeding the approach of a stranger’s step. Struck by so sinister a presence in a place so dark and desolate, Mr. Sylvester