"I'll go in first, and prepare him, sir." "Let us have lights in the house. Don't leave Mr. Lemon in the dark. Put a candle in the passage also." She followed my instructions, and then we went to her husband's bedroom. I waited outside while she "prepared" him. It did not take long to do so, and she came to the door and beckoned to me. I entered the room, and desired her to leave us alone. "But don't lock us in," I added. "No, sir," she said. "Lemon's safe now you're with him." With that she retired, first smoothing the bedclothes and the pillow with a kind of pitying, soothing motion as though Lemon was about to undergo an operation. I moved the candle so that its light fell upon Lemon's face. A scared, frightened face it was that turned towards me, the face of a man who had received a deadly shock. It is unnecessary to say more than a few words about what passed between Mr. Lemon and myself. My purpose was to obtain from him confirmation of the strange mysterious story which Fanny had related. In this purpose I succeeded; it was correct in every particular. What I elicited from Lemon was elicited in the form of questions which I put to him and which he answered, sometimes readily, sometimes reluctantly. Had time not been so precious, my curiosity would have impelled me to go into matters respecting Devlin other than the murder of Lizzie Melladew, but I felt there was not a minute to waste; and at the termination of my interview with Lemon I went into the passage, where I found Fanny waiting for me. Whispering to her not to remain there, in order that Devlin might not be too strongly prejudiced against me--supposing him to be on the watch as well as ourselves--and receiving from her instructions as to the position of his room, I mounted the stairs with a firm, loud tread, and stood in the dark at the door which was to conduct me to the presence of the mysterious being. CHAPTER XIX. FACE TO FACE WITH DEVLIN, I DEMAND AN EXPLANATION OF HIM. I rapped with my knuckles, and a voice which could have been none other than the voice of Devlin immediately responded, calling to me to enter. The next moment I stood face to face with the strange creature, concerning whom my curiosity was raised to the highest pitch. He was sitting in a chair upon my entrance, and he did not rise from it; therefore I looked down upon him and he looked up at me. As my eyes rested on his face, I saw in it the inspiration of the evil expression in the faces of Mr. Lemon's portrait, the stone monster, and the bird's beak, which had made so profound an impression upon me in the parlour on the ground-floor. "You have been in the house some time," said Devlin. "I have," I answered. "And have had a long, a very long, conversation with my worthy landlady," he observed. "Yes," I said. "About me," he said, not in the form of a question but as a statement of fact. "Partly about you." "And about poor Lemon?" "Yes, about him as well."