But the old maid-servant, who had come up the steep stairs with her little lamp for the last time, to ask if anything was wanted, was just passing Christiane's door when the terrible cry of mortal agony and wild despair fell on her ear. The kind hearted woman also thought that some sudden pain had attacked the young lady, but did not hesitate an instant to open the door with the pass key she always carried, and hastily enter the room. When the light of her little lamp streamed far before her into the dark ante-chamber, the old woman remained standing on the threshold as if petrified, unable to take a single step forward or backward. She saw Fräulein Christiane standing motionless with bare feet, beside the wall at the head of the bed, the coverlid closely wrapped around her, her unbound hair streaming over her shoulders, her right arm with the fingers of the hand extended, stretched out before her, her eyes, dilated so that the whites glittered in the light, fixed in a rigid stare on the dark figure of a man, who also stood motionless in the middle of the room. Not a syllable was uttered. A stifled cry, like a rattling in the throat, came from Christiane, and from the spot where the man stood a sound very like the grinding of teeth. The man then turned, noiselessly and with apparent calmness, and seemed to be looking for something on the floor; then waving one hand toward the wall, and concealing his face with the other, he kept his back toward the little lamp, and glided bare headed past the old woman out into the dark entry. At the same moment the white figure beside the bed sank down, and as the old servant rushed forward, the light fell upon a face deadly pale and distorted by the wildest convulsions of human agony. CHAPTER VII.