Dr. Vernier, with an angry exclamation, took a stride toward her, but stopped suddenly. There was a shadow behind the woman--the shadow of some one else, creeping into the room with a hand against the wall as though groping blindly. The man had seen it, and stood, like one turned to stone, watching it. Mrs. Blissett, following the direction of his eyes, turned swiftly, and backed away from it. The figure, still with a hand against the wall, came slowly along the side of the room, with her eyes fixed only on him. He seemed to recover himself at last with a start, drew a deep breath, and waved Mrs. Blissett from the room with an impatient arm. "You need not stay--you need not stay. I will see the lady." Mrs. Blissett evidently had a vague idea that this was a night when anything might happen; she had performed her small duties about the place for many months, and had never seen a living creature come to the house, and on this night the place had already been twice invaded. She backed out of the room with a sigh of resignation and closed the door. The stranger had put an arm across her eyes, as though to shield herself from the doctor's gaze, and was leaning against the wall; she seemed, from the shaking of her slight body, to be weeping. There was silence between them for some moments--a silence which the man broke; his voice sounded strained and unnatural. "Where have you come from?" "A long way--a very long way," replied the woman without uncovering her face. "Why have you come back here?" His voice was dull and level and hard, and his face might have been cut out of stone, for any changing expression it wore. "You chose your own path; why have you abandoned it?" She was weeping so bitterly that for a time she could not answer his question. At last she turned her face fully to him, a young and rather pretty face, but haggard and wild with weeping and with sorrow; he looked at it unmoved. "I have been seeking for you a long time," she said at last, in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "There has been a hunger here"--she struck herself relentlessly on the breast--"greater than I could bear. I could not sleep; I have even prayed to die. I want to see--to see the child!" The man raised his arm fiercely, as though to ward off her approach, and took a step backward. "No!" he cried, almost in a shout.