Low, very faint, ambiguous in its character, it seemed to proceed from the extremity of the passage, which branched from the head of the second staircase. Was it a faint cry for help--a moan of anguish--or the echo of voices, muffled by thick cowls? He had no chance to determine. For at the very moment when this sound reached his ears, it was drowned by another sound. The bell rang through the house, peal after peal, and died away in a dismal echo. There was a pause; it rang again, and this time more violently, as though an angry or frenzied hand grasped the bell-rope.--Another pause, and a light flashed in the face of Dermoyne. It came from the extremity of the passage at the head of the stairs, and was held in the hand of a woman, clad in a flowing wrapper, who advanced along the passage with rapid strides.--Standing at the head of the second stairway, Dermoyne surveyed her as she approached, and at a glance, as she came rapidly toward him, beheld her portly form and florid face. That face wore a look of unmistakable chagrin. "No time is to be lost--in a moment she will be here," thought Dermoyne--"can it be Madam Resimer?" He advanced and shrouded himself in the darkness of the third stairway. Near and nearer grew the sound of footsteps-- "If she looks this way, as she descends the stairs, I am discovered," and Dermoyne could distinctly hear the beating of his heart. The next moment the rustling of her dress was heard; her heavy strides resounded as she advanced; and then emerging from the passage, she reached the top of the second stairway. Her dress brushed Dermoyne, as he crouched on the first steps of the uppermost stairs; her face was visible in profile for a single instant. "Curse this light, how it flares, and curse that bell--will it never cease ringing? At such a moment too,--" And without once looking behind her, she hurriedly descended the second stairs. Dermoyne watched her tall form, with its loose gown, flowing all about her bulky outlines, until she turned the angle of the stairs and disappeared. CHAPTER II. "HERMAN, YOU WILL NOT DESERT ME?" "Now is my time," muttered Dermoyne to himself, and at once he entered the passage, which branched from the head of the stairs, and led to the eastern wing of the mansion. How his heart beat, how his blood bounded in his veins, as he drew near the open door at the extremity of the passage! On the threshold he paused--his form shrouded by the darkness, but the light from within the room shining upon his forehead--he paused and took a single glance at the scene which was disclosed to his vision. Never till his dying hour shall he forget that scene.