Rising up from his bed, Franz crept over to the door of communication between the two rooms, his mind for the moment distracted by the sound even from his own immediate and pressing danger. For it was borne in upon him at once by what Fridolin Telser had said, that the woman in the next room was none other than Linnet! Sob, sob, sob, the voice continued, chokingly. Franz could feel rather than hear that the noise was muffled by the intervention of the bed-clothes, and that Linnet, if it was she, was doing the very best she knew to check it. But, in spite of her efforts, the sobs broke out afresh every now and again, spasmodically; she was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, as if her heart would break—sobbing by herself in the solitude of her bedroom. All terrified as he was, Franz’s heart stood still at it. Presently, another door on the far side seemed to open, and a voice was heard saying in low, angry tones, “Won’t you stop that noise? I can’t sleep for hearing you.” It was Andreas Hausberger’s voice; Franz clenched his hands to hear it. But Linnet seemed to raise her head from the bed-clothes at those words, and speak at last with a great effort to calm herself. “Andreas,” she said, through her sobs, “as the Church bids, I follow you; but I can’t help crying when I think how you treat me. I cry as silently and quietly as I can to myself. If I keep you awake, you must take another room a little farther off from me.” That was all. She said no more; and Andreas closed the door, as Franz judged, and went back again. But even in his own hour of peril and terror—perhaps all the more keenly because of all that had happened to him—Franz read in those few words the whole story of Linnet’s unhappy marriage. He had suspected it before, of course, but now he knew it. Andreas’s gruff tone of reproof, poor Linnet’s shrinking accent of despairing misery, were more eloquent in his ears than whole hours of deliberate and demonstrative talking. This episode meant much to him. It was for Linnet he had hazarded and encountered everything—it was for Linnet, indirectly, he had risked his own life by stabbing that wretched man away over at Monte Carlo! His anger burned bright against Andreas Hausberger; Hausberger who had cheated him of his Linnet long ago; Hausberger who was making his Linnet’s life a burden to her! The cold-blooded wretch! How Franz wished it was into _him_ he had plunged that good knife that did swift execution on the dead cheat at Monte Carlo! Ah well, ah well, it was not too late even now! If he couldn’t marry Linnet, he could at least avenge her! He could have wiped out old scores and redressed new wrongs—if it had only been Andreas in place of that other man! CHAPTER L ANDREAS HAUSBERGER PAYS