He ran into the house as though he had gone blind. The door fell to behind him. He stood in blackness. He called. He received no answer. He saw nothing. He groped. He felt walls—endless walls.... Steps.... He climbed up the steps.... A pale redness swam about him like the reflection of a distant gloomy fire. Suddenly—he stopped still, clawing his hand into the stonework behind him—a sound was coming out of the nothingness: The weeping of a woman sorrowing, sorrowing unto death. It was not very loud, but yet it was as if the source of all lamentation were streaming out of it. It was as though the house were weeping—as though every stone in the wall were a sobbing mouth, set free from eternal dumbness, once and once only, to mourn an everlasting agony. Freder shouted—he was fully aware that he was only shouting in order not to hear the weeping any more. “Maria—Maria—Maria—!” His voice was clear and wild as an oath: “I am coming!” He ran up the stairs. He reached the top of the stairs. A passage, scarcely lighted. Twelve doors opened out here. In the wood of each of these doors glowed, copper-red, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram. He sprang to the first one. Before he had touched it it swung noiselessly open before him. Emptiness lay behind it. The room was quite bare. The second door. The same. The third. The fourth. They swung open before him as though his breath had blown them off the latch. Freder stood still. He screwed his head down between his shoulders. He raised his arm and wiped it across his forehead. He looked around him. The open doors stood agape. The mournful weeping ceased. All was quite silent. But out of the silence there came a voice, soft and sweet, and more tender than a kiss.... “Come...! Do come...! I am here, dearest...!” Freder did not stir. He knew the voice quite well. It was Maria’s voice, which he so loved. And yet it was a strange voice. Nothing in the world could be sweeter than the tone of this soft allurement—and nothing in the world has ever been so filled to overflowing with a dark, deadly wickedness. Freder felt the drops upon his forehead. “Who are you?” he asked expressionlessly. “Don’t you know me?” “Who are you?” “... Maria....” “You are not Maria....” “Freder—!” mourned the voice—Maria’s voice. “Do you want me to lose my reason?” said Freder, between his teeth. “Why don’t you come to me?” “I can’t come, beloved....” “Where are you?” “Look for me!” said the sweetly alluring, the deadly wicked voice, laughing softly. But through the laughter there sounded another voice—being _also_ Maria’s voice, sick with fear and horror. “Freder ... help me, Freder.... I do not know what is being done to me.... But what is being done is worse than murder.... My eyes are on....” Suddenly, as though cut off, her voice choked. But the other voice—which was _also_ Maria’s voice, laughed, sweetly, alluringly, on: “Look for me, beloved!”