But the words failed to reach the ears of the poor child. With her large eyes distended with terror and bewilderment, she indicated with a gesture some apparition which existed only in her disordered imagination, and murmured, wildly: "The man in black! Oh, the man in black! There he is now! Don't you see him?" "Calm yourself! Don't allow yourself to think any more about that, in Heaven's name. Don't you know how hurtful such thoughts are to you?" "Oh, that man! He was equally terrible in his rage, when--It was years and years ago, and I was little more than a baby, but I can see him yet, in his strange, sombre costume of black and white like the livery of the dead. It was night, and my father was absent from home when this man gained an entrance into our house, I know not how. I had never seen him before. He threatened my mother, who was holding me in her arms. 'At least spare my child!' she sobbed. I remember it well. But he only exclaimed, still advancing threateningly upon my mother, 'Don't you know that I am capable of anything in my anger?' And then he rushed out of the room. Oh, my mother, my mother dead, and I--" The girl could say no more, for she was relapsing into one of the nervous spasms which this terrible recollection almost always caused,--this recollection of a deplorable occurrence from which her condition of morbid susceptibility seemed to have dated. This crisis soon abated, thanks to the judicious attentions of the housekeeper, who was, alas! only too used to rendering them. When she was herself again, the young girl, whose character was a singular compound of weakness and firmness, thought with shame and regret of the lack of self-control she had displayed while this account of the corsair's escape was being read, an account which, strange to say, had an inexplicable fascination for her, inspiring her at the same time with horror and a sort of morbid curiosity; so, in spite of Onésime's entreaties, she insisted that he should continue the reading so unfortunately interrupted. The housekeeper, noting this insistence, and fearing that any opposition might react very dangerously upon the girl's excitable nature just at this time, also requested Onésime to continue the account of Captain l'Endurci's escape. CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CAPTAIN'S NARRATIVE. The rest of the captain's letter read as follows: