The corridor, at this midnight hour, was quiet and empty and lighted faintly by a single gas jet. The minutes stretched themselves into hours, it seemed, before he heard cautious footsteps coming up the stairs. He strained his ears to listen. The steps did not move forward with the quick, regular beat of someone making straight for his room, but sounded hesitating and dragging as though up a steep, difficult climb. Edgar also caught the sound of whispering, a pause, then whispering again. He was a-quiver with excitement. Was it both of them coming up together? Was the creature still sticking to her? The whispering was too low and far away for him to catch what they were saying. But the footsteps, though slowly and with pauses between, were drawing nearer. And now he could hear the baron's voice--oh, how he hated the sound of it!--saying something in a low, hoarse tone, which he could not get, and then his mother answering as though to ward something off: "No, no, not tonight!" Edgar's excitement rose to fever heat. As they came nearer he would be bound to catch everything they said. Each inch closer that they drew was like a physical hurt in his breast, and the baron's voice, how ugly it seemed, that greedy, grasping disgusting voice. "Don't be cruel. You were so lovely this evening." "No, no, I mustn't. I can't. Let me go!" There was such alarm in his mother's voice that the child was terrified. What did the baron want her to do? Why was she afraid? They were quite close up to him now, apparently right in front of the portière. A foot or two away from them was he, trembling, invisible, with a bit of drapery for his only protection. Edgar heard his mother give a faint groan as though her powers of resistance were weakening. But what was that? Edgar could hear that they had passed his mother's door and had kept on walking down the corridor. Where was he dragging her off to? Why was she not replying any more? Had he stuffed his hand kerchief into her mouth and was he squeezing her throat? Wild with this thought, Edgar pushed the portière aside and peeped out at the two figures in the dim corridor. The baron had his arm round the woman's waist and was forcing her along gently, evidently with little resistance from her. He stopped at his own door. "He wants to drag her in and commit the foul deed," though the child, and dashing the portière aside he rushed down the hall upon them. His mother screamed; something came leaping at her out of the dark, and she seemed to fall in a faint. The baron held her up with difficulty. The next instant he felt a little fist dealing him a blow that smashed his lips against his teeth, and a little body clawing at him catlike. He released the terrified woman, who quickly made her escape, and, without knowing against whom, he struck out blindly.