“She will come presently,” he muttered to himself, with a kind of subdued growling which indicated the fury of his pent-up rage: “she will come presently,” he repeated, his eyes glaring like those of a hyena beneath his shaggy, over-hanging brows; “and perhaps it will be for to-day! Who knows? she may think me penitent enough to be no longer dangerous: and then--then----” He paused, and ground his jaws savagely together as if they were filled with teeth; and his hands were clenched with such spasmodic violence that the long nails ran into the palms. “For two months and a half,” he continued at length, and still musing to himself, “has the fiend--the infernal wretch--my mortal enemy, kept me here! For two months and a half have I been his prisoner! Perdition seize upon him! That man was sent into the world to be my ruin--to thwart me--to persecute me! From the first moment I ever met him six or seven months ago, all has gone wrong with me. But the day of vengeance must and shall come,--yes--vengeance--vengeance--though it costs me my life. Ah! he fancies that I am ignorant of his secret: and yet I understand it all now--yes--all, all! Rapid as was the gleam of the lamp which showed me his features the first time he ever visited me here, so quick did a light flash to my mind--so quick did the truth break upon me! Yes--yes--I understand it all _now_;”--and he chuckled in a scarcely audible manner, yet the more horribly menacing because it was so subdued and low. “But how can it be?--how could he have been saved?” he asked himself, in his sombre musings: then, after a brief pause, during which he rocked to and fro on the bed, he continued, “Never mind the _how_! That such is the fact I am confident--and that is enough for me! Yes--yes--that is enough for me! Fool that I was ever for a moment to suspect him to be Lord Ellingham! And yet I should have clung to this belief, had not the lamp glared upon his face as he darted out of the cell! Ah! ah! he little thinks that I know him now--that I have known him ever since the moment when the light showed me his features, blackened as they were! Ah! ah!” again chuckled Old Death: “I fancy that I have lulled them into an idea of my penitence! They imagine that the work of reformation has begun with me! Ah! ha! I played my cards well there! I did not whine and weep too soon--I appeared to be precious tough, and precious obstinate; and my slow conversion seemed all the more natural. They will fall all the easier into the snare: they----” At this moment a slight noise at the door of the cell made the ancient miscreant start; and he instantaneously composed his features into as mournful and sanctimonious an expression as such a horribly hang-dog countenance could possibly assume. The trap-door opened; and a sweet, musical voice said, “I am here again, according to my promise: you see that I do not desert you.”