The young woman told us in excited tones and with her hands clasped, how she had found Old Bob bending over his desk with his head buried in his hands. He had refused to have anything to say to her. She had spoken to him affectionately and he had treated her like a bear. Then, as he had obstinately held his hands to his ears, she had pricked one of his fingers with a little pin set with rubies which she used to fasten the lace scarf which she wore in the evening over her shoulders. Her uncle, she said, had turned upon her like a madman, had snatched the little pin from her and thrown it upon the desk. And then he had spoken to her--“brutally, rudely as he had never done before in his life!” she ejaculated. “Get out of here and leave me alone!” was what he had said to her. Mme. Edith had been so much pained that she went out without saying a word, promising herself, however, that she would not soon set foot again in the Round Tower. But she had turned her head for a last look at her old uncle and had been almost struck dumb by what she saw. The “oldest skull in the history of the human race” was upon the desk, and Old Bob, a handkerchief stained with blood in his hand, was spitting in the skull. He had always treated it with the most severe respect and had insisted that others should do the same. Edith had hurried away, almost frightened. Robert Darzac reassured her by telling her that what she had taken for blood was only paint and that Old Bob’s skull had been spattered by the paints which had been used in the wash drawing. I left the table to hurry out to Rouletabille and also to escape from Mathilde’s glances. What had the Lady in Black been doing in my bedroom? I was not to wait long to know! * * * * * When I started out the thunder was pealing loudly and the rain falling with redoubled force. It took me only one bound to reach the postern. No Rouletabille was there! I found him on the terrace B″, watching the entrance to the Square Tower and receiving the full strength of the storm at his back. I entreated him to take shelter under the arch. “Leave me alone!” he said impatiently. “Leave me alone. This is the deluge. Ah, how good it is! how good--all this anger of the heavens! Have you ever had a desire to roar with the thunder? I have--and I am roaring now. Listen, while I cry out--alas! alas! alas! My voice is stronger than the thunder!” And he plunged into the darkness making the shadows resound with his savage clamors. I believed this time that he had surely gone mad! But in my heart I knew that the unhappy lad was breathing forth in these indistinct articulations of frightful anguish the misery that burned him, and which he was constantly trying to hinder from burning up the heart and the soul in his body--the misery of being the son of Larsan. I turned helplessly and as I did so, I felt a hand seize my wrist and a dark form cried out to me above the tempest: “Where is he?”