"Tall," said the widow's faltering alarmed voice, falling with a strange uncertainty through the intense stillness, in single words, with gasps between; "not--a very young man--aquiline--with a sort of eagle-look--light hair--long and thin, and as fine as silk--very light in his beard, so that it scarcely showed. Oh, God help us! what is it? what is it?--You both know whom I mean." Neither of them spoke; but the eyes of the two met in a single look, from which both withdrew, as if the communication were a crime. With a shudder Vincent approached his mother; and, speechless though he was, took hold of her, and drew her to him abruptly. Was it murder he read in those eyes, with their desperate concentration of will and power? The sight of them, and recollection of their dreadful splendour, drove even Susan out of his mind. Susan, poor gentle soul!--what if she broke her tender heart, in which no devils lurked? "Mother, come--come," he said, hoarsely, raising her up in his arm, and releasing the hand which the extraordinary woman beside her still clasped fast. The movement roused Mrs. Hilyard as well as Mrs. Vincent. She rose up promptly from the side of the visitor who had brought her such news. "I need not suggest to you that this must be acted on at once," she said to Vincent, who, in his agitation, saw how the hand, with which she leant on the table, clenched hard till it grew white with the pressure. "The man we have to deal with spares nothing." She stopped, and then, with an effort, went up to the half-fainting mother, who hung upon Vincent's arm, and took her hands and pressed them close. "We have both thrust our children into the lion's mouth," she cried, with a momentary softening. "Go, poor woman, and save your child if you can, and so will I--we are companions in misfortune. And you are a priest, why cannot you curse him?" she exclaimed, with a bitter cry. The next moment she had taken down a travelling-bag from a shelf, and, kneeling down by a trunk, began to transfer some things to it. Vincent left his mother, and went up to her with a sudden impulse, "I am a priest, let me bless you," said the young man, touching with a compassionate hand the dark head bending before him. Then he took his mother away. He could not speak as he supported her down-stairs; she, clinging to him with double weakness, could scarcely support herself at all in her agitation and wonder when they got into the street. She kept looking in his face with a pitiful appeal that went to his heart. "Tell me, Arthur, tell me!" She sobbed it out unawares, and over and over before he knew what she was saying. And what could he tell her? "We must go to Susan--poor Susan!" was all the young man could say. CHAPTER XV.