"Yes, yes, I am here," said Polidori, in a louder voice; "but I answered
softly, fearing to affect your hearing, as I did a few moments ago."

"No, now your voice reaches my ear without causing me those painful
sufferings; for it seemed to me, at the least noise, as if a thunderbolt
had broken in my head. And yet, in the midst of all this noise, of these
sufferings without name, I distinguished the voice of Cecily calling me."

"Always this infernal woman--always. But drive away these thoughts, they
will kill you."

"Drive them away!" cried Jacques Ferrand; "oh! never, never!"

"What mad fury! It alarms me."

"Hold, now," said the notary, in a husky voice, with his eyes fixed on an
obscure corner of the alcove. "I see already--like a living thing--a shape
appearing--there--there!"

And he pointed with his bony finger in the direction of the vision.

"Hush, be quiet, unhappy man!"

"Oh! there, there!"

"Jacques, it is death."

"Oh! I see her," added Ferrand, his teeth set. "There she is! how handsome
she is; how handsome! See her long black hair; it floats in disorder upon
her shoulders! And her small teeth, which are seen through her half-opened