"Oh!" she cried joining her hands in an iron grip, "may sickness and poverty and misfortune waylay him! may he love one who will break his heart! may this life be to him a temporary hell, to prepare for the eternal one in the next! Ha, ha, that is good Fifine, _pourtant, le beau Bijou_ would be vexed to hear that, he would be shocked. We'll tell a secret to this brave young man. The world is big, Bijou, and Fifine is only a small weak child, but she loves to hate, and she loves revenge. She will walk till her feet are blistered, and her body worn and tired, but she will find Bijou, she owes him a little debt and she must pay it. She gives the devil his due, ha, ha, ha," and the wild unearthly laugh resounded once more through the dismal darkened chamber. In this horrible strain she continued chattering to herself and menacing Bijou, until suddenly she stopped short and bent over in a listening attitude. A sound had caught her ear. Something had broken the frightful silence besides her rambling maniacal chatter. Some other animate thing was within her hearing. She was breathless for many moments as she glared, eyes and mouth open, in the direction from which the sound had proceeded. She listened devouringly and could now distinctly hear a slow regular breathing, somewhere near, but which way she could not tell. Her flesh crept with a new fear. She dreaded being alone, and yet she preferred solitude to the knowledge that some one was coming to her in the darkness. She crawled on her knees a few paces forward, but as the sound decreased she crept silently back in the opposite direction. Still she could not hear more distinctly.