“Francesca mia!” he cried suddenly. He had raised her to her feet, and drawn her passionately against him. He spoke with his lips close to her. “It is I who am evil. Since that night you have been an enigma luring me. I loved you before. But now something else in me worships before you. Oh, my adored one, my beautiful, cruel one. Tell me ... I will love you more ... I will share it with you....” He felt her body stiffen as his arms tightened. Under his burning eyes her face had grown white. She stared at him with sudden horror. “Look at you!” she cried. “God in heaven! You are mad!” “Francesca mia!” he was shouting. “Let me go!” Her arms wrenched themselves free. For a moment he held her writhing body. Then her hand stung against his face. His head recoiled under the blow. She stood apart from him, despair and anguish on her face. “Oh, dear God, there is no one ... no one,” she cried. De Medici’s eyes watched her aloofly as she sank to the floor and lay sobbing and whimpering at his feet. “She acts,” he whispered, “she acts....” CHAPTER VII THE HAUNTED ROOM In which an apoplectic scientist explodes—In which invisible footsteps sound in a dark corridor—In which Julien De Medici opens a letter—The woman of the hidden eyes—Floria, the lady of the dagger, appears—In which underworlds collide—The staircase to Hell and a strange passion—A voice that spoke over the telephone. Tall, wine-colored velvets fell in monotonous parallels from the ceiling to the floor. There were no windows to be seen. A somber and luxurious emptiness like the inside of a jewel box stamped the curious chamber. Four black candlesticks ending in little pyramids of flame stood on the long table in the center. The four little flames glistened like suspended medallions. The towering drapes that enclosed the room broke the darkness into thin and motionless waves. The shadows reaching toward the burning candles seemed to beat with an invisible and inaudible rhythm. Julien De Medici, his narrow eyes half shut, sat watching the dungeon lights that flitted over the face of Dr. Lytton. The doctor’s bald head loomed ghostlike above the table. His black eyes were peering wrathfully at his half visible host. He was talking in a voice alive with indignation. “Bring some lights into this confounded place. This sort of thing is at the bottom of your trouble, Julien.” He waved his short hand in the air and a great shadow lifted itself to the ceiling. “You’re deliberately submitting yourself to a dangerous hypnosis. The wraiths of past De Medicis! Inherited phantoms. Bosh!” The scientist snorted and brought a fist down on the table. “Hypnosis, I tell you. A cleverly induced mania as artificial as this damned room. Wake up, man. There’s nothing wrong with you except a stupid,—yes, sir, a damnably deliberate effort to make a fool out of yourself. You’re as sound mentally as I am.” “Thanks.”