"Have I given you a strange and fearful picture? Be sure that I have not conveyed to you one thousandth part of the impression made upon myself, and that until the day I die that strange apparition will remain stamped upon the tablets of my mind. Diabolical beauty! infernal ugliness!--I would give half my life, be it longer or shorter, to be able to explain whence such things can come, to confound and stupefy all human calculation! "Well, as I was saying, there stood my horribly beautiful fiend, and there I sat spell-bound before her. As for Adolph, though he had told me nothing in advance of the peculiarities of her appearance, he had been fully aware of them, of course, and I had the horrible surprise all to myself. I think the sorceress saw the mingled feeling in my face, and that a smile blended of pride and contempt contorted the proud features and made the ghastly face yet more ghastly for one moment. If so, the expression soon passed away, and she stood, as before, the incarnation of all that was terrible and mysterious. At length, still retaining her place and fixing her eyes upon Von Berg, she spoke, sharply, brusquely, and decidedly: "'You are here again! what do you want?' "'I come to introduce my friend, the Baron Charles Denmore, of England,' answered Von Berg, 'who wishes--' "'Nothing!' said the sorceress, the word coming from her lips with an unmistakably hissing sound. 'He wants nothing, and he is _not_ the Baron Charles Denmore! He comes from far away, across the sea, and he would not have come here to-night but that you insisted upon it! Take him away--go away yourself--and never let me see you again unless you have something to ask or you wish me to do you an injury!' "'But--' began Von Berg. "'Not another word!' said the sorceress, 'I have said. Go, before you repent having come at all!' "'Madame,' I began to say, awed out of the feeling at least of equality which I should have felt to be proper under such circumstances, and only aware that Adolph, and possibly myself, had incurred the enmity of a being so near to the supernatural as to be at least dangerous--'Madame, I hope that you will not think--' "But here she cut _me_ short, as she had done Von Berg the instant before. "'Hope nothing, young man!' she said, her voice perceptibly less harsh and brusque than it had been when speaking to my companion. 'Hope nothing and ask nothing until you may have occasion; then come to me.' "'And then?' "'Then I will answer every question you may think proper to put to me. Stay! you may have occasion to visit me sooner than you suppose, or I may have occasion to force knowledge upon you that you will not have the boldness to seek. If so, I shall send for you. Now go, both of you!'