Oliver did not wait for a second bidding; he flew from the place and the tiresome talk of diamonds and business. As he was about to enter the room which he had left only a little while before, he hesitated for a moment, he knew not why. A sudden pang shot through him, and he pressed his hand to his bosom. That instant a clock rang out sharply in the silence. He counted the twelve strokes, and then opened the door. Some one stood looking out of the window, his face close to the glass. He wore a long black cloak, beneath which he carried a large oval frame of some sort. Oliver walked mechanically up the room, and as he advanced that other turned slowly towards him. Oliver's heart gave a great bound, and then stood quite still within him. The next instant every grain of strength seemed to slip away from him; his knees grew suddenly weak and smote together; his hands dropped with a leaden heaviness to his sides, and his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. _It was the master!_ A moment or two of dead silence followed, and in the heavy, breathless stillness the sharp ticking of a clock sounded with piercing distinctness upon Oliver's tensely-drawn nerves. The master said not a word, but he looked upon him with a cool, contained smile of ineffable complacency. At last, somehow, Oliver found his voice. "You!" he said, hoarsely; and then again, with a gulp: "You! How came you here?" The Count de St. Germaine laughed. "How came I here? I walked here. That does not satisfy you? Well, no matter. I have, as you may know, many, very many, ways of coming and going as I choose. Just now it is sufficient that I am here." "And for what have you come?" said Oliver, in that same slow, hoarse voice. For a while the master leaned against the deep window-casing, and looked at him from under his brows, his eyes burning like green sparks. "For what did I come, Oliver?" said he at last. "I will tell you. You must know that I have a silly habit of keeping my promises. Did I not make you the richest man in France? Did I not teach you the secret of the water of wealth? Did I not teach you all that you know, and make you all that you are? Very good. By so doing I fulfilled one part of a promise I some time made you. Now I have come to fulfil the other part. I promised you then that should you ever return to Paris I would ruin you; I am going to ruin you. I promised that I would crush you; I am about to crush you. I promised to make your life a hell; I will make it a hell. I will make you wish a thousand times that you had never been born. When I first met you in Madame de Pompadour's salon, I read in your face your fear that I would betray you. Ah, no! that would have been childish; it would have been petulant; it would have been impatient and premature. No, Oliver; I have waited until now, and what do you think I have waited for?"