She murmured a frightened inarticulate expression of thanks and staggered on, the iteration of the news-venders' dreadful cries sounding in her ears like the clanging of a thousand bells proclaiming her doom. Her terror was so great that she would have succumbed under it if there had not risen in the white space before her the vision of a young girl at home reading her lover's letter. She saw the lovely lips form the words, "Mamma, listen to what Julian says." This fancy was her salvation. Her daughter was in this terrible city, dependent upon her, with no supporter, with no friend but the mother whose heart was charged with woe and despair. She must be strong for her child's sake. Her strength came back to her; the policeman who had saved her from falling was still looking at her, and now, seeing that she had recovered, passed on. Controlling her agitation, she bought a copy of the _Evening Moon_, and walked mechanically toward Gerard Street. When she was within a short distance of it she wavered in another direction. Dared she go there? Dared she be seen there? Why not? It was hardly likely that she would be noticed; it would depend upon herself whether she attracted attention. She turned her face toward Gerard Street. A magnetic current drew her on, and she could no more have effectually resisted it than she could have changed day into night by closing her eyes. She _must_ go and see for herself. The street was busy with people, drawn there as she was drawn, but, as she shudderingly confessed to herself, with a different knowledge of the truth. Outside the house in which M. Felix had lived there was a throng of people gazing up at the windows. "That's the window of his sitting-room. Is he there now? Yes, stretched out, dead and done for. He was a gentleman, wasn't he? Yes, with heaps of money. He always kept a pile of gold and bank notes in his room. What's become of it? Ah, what? When was it done? About midnight, when there was no one but the murderer and the murdered gentleman in the house. The housekeeper had gone out for her supper beer. They forced the door open, and there he was, murdered. Who did it? A man, of course? Maybe--maybe not. Just as likely it was a woman. It doesn't matter to him now. He's dead, and won't come back to tell. Have they caught the murderer? Not yet, but they've got a clew, they say. Ah, they always say that. But it's true this time. They'll catch him, never fear, and when he's caught, the Lord have mercy on him!"