After dinner on that evening, Alice and her lover were waiting in the library, feeling sorrowful and depressed. The young man was seated in an arm-chair before the fire and Alice, on the hearth-rug, inclined her dark head against his knees. Having watched throughout the previous night by the bedside, she had slept all day, and now was giving her whole attention to Douglas before returning to her new vigil in the sick-room. Neither of the two was speaking, as the shadow of evil lay thicker and blacker than ever on the house, and there was a feeling still more terrible in the air. Montrose felt little of such things, cased as he was in less sensitive flesh; but Alice was alive to battling forces, invisible and menacing, which thrilled her soul with agony and helpless grief. "Death is here," she said at length, without removing her gaze from the burning logs, and Montrose knew enough of her clairvoyant powers not to exclaim at the weird remark. "Do you think he will die to-night?" he asked, looking nervously round the brilliantly lighted room. "I think so. Something dreadful is coming nearer and nearer. Very cold, very powerful, yet very merciful." Montrose shuddered and recalled a play by Maeterlinck which he had read some years back. The atmosphere of the library was exactly that suggested by "L'Intruse," and he felt, as did the characters in that wonderful piece of writing, that the being with the scythe was about to enter the door. When a sharp knock came, his shaken nerves extorted a start and a cry. But it was only the housekeeper who came to announce that she wanted Alice to take up the watch by Enistor's bedside and also to tell both the young people that two gentlemen had arrived simultaneously at Tremore. "Mr. Hardwick and Dr. Eberstein," said the housekeeper. "Tell them to come in," replied Alice quietly, in marked contrast to her lover, who started to his feet much perturbed. "Why do they come together?" he asked uneasily. "They have never met before to my knowledge." "It is the beginning of the end, Douglas!" "They then bring death with them?" "Señor Narvaez brings death and Dr. Eberstein brings life," said Alice, still in the unemotional tone which she had used throughout. "But not in a physical way, you understand. Hush! Here they are."