Thoroughly tired out at last, he took a frugal dinner at a restaurant, and accompanied it with a bottle of inexpensive wine. He lingered over his meal and made an attempt to read an evening paper, but found he could not do so. The vortex in which his nature had been plunged absorbed the whole of his thoughts. XXXIV MAGDALENE OR DELILAH About nine he returned to his lodging. He lit the lamp, drew the curtains across the window, and built up a good fire. He set himself to do three hours’ reading before he turned into bed. However, that power of will it was his wont to exert to its fullest capacity was for once insubordinate. There were not two consecutive sentences upon any of the pages which he tried that displayed a meaning. He had never known this impotence before. In the midst of these futile attempts to fix his mind on the task before it, he thought he heard the creaking of the stairs. He listened acutely. Late as was the hour, the clerk of some attorney might be bringing him more briefs. A moment later his door was softly tried and opened as softly as some one entered the room. To the profound astonishment of the young man he saw that it was the figure of a woman. She was tall and pale and clad sombrely in close black draperies. Her entrance was somewhat stealthy, yet it had neither reluctance nor timidity. Unhesitatingly she approached the chair in which the advocate sat with a book on his knee. He rose to greet her with an air of bewilderment. “I knew you were a great student,” said his visitor in a low voice, letting two large and dark eyes fall upon the page of the book. “I beg your pardon,” said Northcote, “I am afraid I don’t know you.” “You do not know me?” said his visitor in a tone that entered his blood. “I will give you a moment to think.” Northcote seemed to recoil with a half-born pang of recollection which refused to take shape. “I have not the faintest knowledge of having met you before,” he said, feeling how vain was the effort to fix his thought. “Think,” said his visitor. “It is in vain.” “I should not have expected you to have so short a memory,” said the woman. “You saw me yesterday and you saw me the day before that.” “I do not recognize you at all,” said Northcote faintly. “Should I have remembered that you were a busy man who was unable to spare a thought outside of his profession?” There was something curiously stealthy in the fall of the voice which startled the advocate. “That is a voice I seem to recall,” he said, with an air almost of distress. “A voice you seem to recall,” said his visitor, with a sombre laughter which made his heart beat violently. “How strange it is that you should recall it! You only heard it once, and that was in the stifling darkness of a prison!” Northcote gave a cry of stupefaction. “Impossible, impossible!” he said weakly. “You--you cannot be the woman Emma Harrison!”