“For God's sake, spare me, spare me!” he faltered, with his hands clasped and his head bent before that fury. “Why should I spare such a wretch--why should I not trample such a worm into the dust?” She took a frantic step toward him. With a short cry of abject terror he fell along the floor, and gasped. It seemed to him that she had trampled the life out of his body. She stood above him with a heaving bosom beneath her folded arms. There was a long pause before he heard the door open. A weight seemed lifted off him. He found that he could breathe. In a few moments he ventured to raise his head. He saw a beautiful figure sitting at the desk writing. Even in the scratching of her pen along the paper there was a tone of tragedy. He crawled backward upon his hands and knees, with his eyes furtively fixed upon that figure at the desk. If, when he had looked up he had found her standing with an arm outstretched tin the direction of the door, he felt that he would have been able to rise to his feet and leave her presence; but Mrs. Siddons' dramatic instinct caused her to produce a deeper impression upon him by simply treating him as if he were dead at her feet--as if she had, indeed, trampled the life out of his body. He crept away slowly and painfully backward, until he was actually in the lobby. Then by a great effort he sprang to his feet, rushed headlong down the stairs, picked himself up in the hall, and fled wildly through the door, that chanced to be open, into the street. He overthrew a chairman in his wild flight, and as he turned the corner he went with a rush into the arms of a young man, who, with a few others by his side, was sauntering along. [Illustration: 0205] “Zounds, sir! what do you mean by this mode of progression?” cried the young man, holding him fast. Dionysius grasped him limply, looking at him with wild, staring eyes. “For God's sake, Mr. Blake, save me from her--do n't let her get hold of me, for the love of all the saints.” “What do you mean, you fool?” said Jimmy Blake. “Who is anxious to get hold of you?” But no answer was returned by poor Dionysius. He lay with his head over Blake's shoulder, his arms swaying limply like two pendulums. “By the powers, he has gone off in a swoon,” said young Blenerhassett. “Let us carry him to the nearest tavern.” In less than half an hour Dionysius had recovered consciousness; but it required a longer space of time, and the administration of a considerable quantity of whisky, to enable him to tell all his story. He produced the letter signed “S. S.” which he had received in the morning, and explained that he had paid the visit to Mrs. Siddons only with a view of reasoning her out of her infatuation, which, he said with a shadowy simper, he could not encourage.