“Why didn’t he kill me? It was my cry that checked him; but why should it? Was it my appeal for help that brought him to his senses? I think so. It touched that within him which had been so keenly alert, so unrelaxingly vigilant, ever since I had come under his care. But what did he mean by the howl of the she-wolf? And what did he mean by saying that the wolves had come down? Several times since that terrible scene he has waked me in the night with groans, and with crying out in his sleep, ‘The she-wolf?’ These things have a meaning, I know. Why does he explain nothing? And why have I permitted an estrangement between us that makes it impossible for me to seek his confidence? Is it too late now? “Oh, the terrible moments, the interminable hours, that passed after he had left the hut by the rear door! Every second, at first, I expected him to return and kill me. Would he have a rifle, a revolver, a knife, or a bludgeon, or would he come with those terrible long fingers hooked like claws to fasten upon my throat? And yet, somehow, I felt safe; I felt that his old watchfulness and solicitude had returned. “As soon as I could overcome the half-stupor into which his outburst had thrown me I dragged myself to the rear door, intending to barricade it against him. The effort was exceedingly painful and exhausting, and brought me great suffering for a week afterward. But my sufferings of mind and spirit were so much greater that I could bear those of the flesh. When I had crawled to the door and was trying to drag a box against it, I heard something that stopped me. I am not certain that it was anything real. There was a loud singing in my ears from the awful fright that I had suffered, and what I heard may have been that, made seemingly coherent by my over-strained imagination. What I heard sounded like the distant, smothered, awful strains of Saint-Saens’s ‘Dance of Death’ played on the violin. But wild and terrible as it sounded, it came as a pledge of my safety. Murder cannot come with music. “I drew myself away and with great effort clambered upon the bed, where I lay a long time in complete exhaustion. Time had no meaning for me. A dull, massive, intangible weight seemed to be crushing me, and I longed--oh, how I longed!--for human sympathy. “The hut was dark when he returned. We had been very saving with the candles, for Dr. Malbone explained that they were running low; so in the evenings we generally had only the fire-light. There seemed to be a generous supply of fire-wood in the rear apartment, and some of it was a pitchy pine that gave out a fine blaze. When he returned the fire had burned out. I felt no fear when I heard him enter. I knew by the unsteadiness of his movements that he was weak and ill, but the first sound of his voice as he called me anxiously was perfectly reassuring. “‘I am lying on the bed,’ I answered.