Why does his face change color, as he reads? The look of grief which his countenance wears is succeeded by one of utter horror. "The poison vial!" he ejaculates, and places the fatal letter in Mary's hand. CHAPTER VI. A LOOK INTO THE RED BOOK. Madam Resimer was waiting in the little room up-stairs,--waiting and watching in that most secret chamber of her mansion,--her cheek resting on her hand, her eyes fixed upon the drawer from which the Red Book had been stolen. The day was bright without, but in the closed apartment, the Madam watched by the light of a candle, which was burning fast to the socket. The Madam had not slept. Her eyes were restless and feverish. Her cheeks, instead of their usual florid hues, were marked with alternate spots of white and red. Sitting in the arm-chair, (which her capacious form, clad in the chintz wrapper, filled to overflowing), the Madam beats the carpet nervously with her foot, and then her small black eyes assume a wicked, a vixenish look. Daylight is bright upon the city and river; ten o'clock is near,--the hour at which Dermoyne intended to return,--and yet the Madam has no word of the bullies whom last night she set upon Dermoyne's track. Near ten o'clock, and no news of Dirk, Slung-Shot, or--the Red Book! "Why _don't_ they come!" exclaimed the Madam, for the fiftieth time, and she beat the carpet wickedly with her foot. And from the shadows of the apartment, a voice, most lugubrious in its tone, uttered the solitary word,--"_Why?_" "If they don't come, what shall we do?" the Madam's eyes grew wickeder, and she began to "crack" the joints of her fingers. "_What?_" echoed the lugubrious voice. "I'll tell you what it is, Corkins," said the Madam, turning fiercely in her chair, "I wish the devil had you,--I do! Sittin' there in your chair, croakin' like a raven.--'What! Why!'" and she mimicked him wickedly; "when you should be doin' somethin' to stave off the trouble that's gatherin' round us. Now you know, that unless we get back the Red Book, we're ruined,--you know it?" "Com-pletely ruined!" echoed Corkins, who sat in the background, on the edge of a chair, his elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands. Corkins, you will remember, is a little, slender man, clad in black, with a white cravat about his neck, a top-knot on his low forehead, a "goatee" on his chin, and gold spectacles on his nose. And as Corkins sits on the edge of his chair, he looks very much like a strange bird on its perch,--a bird of evil omen, meditating all sorts of calamities sure to happen to quite a number of people, at some time not definitely ascertained.