"Nothing," he said, folding his arms with the air of a man who has lost all hope, and made up his mind to the worst. "I am in your power." Dermoyne, with this finger to his lip, remained for a moment buried in profound thought. Once his eyes, glancing sidelong, rested upon Barnhurst with a sort of ferocious glare. When he spoke again, it was in these words:-- "Enter your bed-chamber, and sleep beside your faithful wife, and,--think of Alice. As for myself, I will watch for the morning, on the sofa, down stairs. Enter, I say!" he pointed sternly to the door,--"and remember! at morning we take up our march again. I _know_ that you will not escape from me,--and as for your wife, if you do not wish her to see me, you will make your appearance at an early hour." Barnhurst, without a word, glided silently into the bed-chamber, closing the door after him. Dermoyne, listening for a moment, heard the voices of the husband and the wife, mingling in conversation. Then he went quietly down stairs, took down the hanging-lamp, and with it in his hand, entered a room on the lower floor. It was a neatly-furnished apartment with a sofa, a piano, and a portrait of Barnhurst on the wall. The remains of a wood-fire were smouldering on the hearth. Near the piano stood an empty cradle. It was very much like--home. It was, in a word, the room through whose curtained windows, we gazed in our brief episode, and saw the pure wife with her children, awaiting the return of the husband and father. Dermoyne lit a candle, which stood on a table, near the sofa, and then replaced the hanging lamp. This done, he came into the quiet parlor again,--without once pausing to notice that the front door was ajar. Had he but remarked this little fact, he might have saved himself a world of trouble. He flung his cloak upon the table, and placed his cap and the iron bar beside it. Then seating himself on the sofa, he drew the Red Book from under his left arm, where for hours he had securely carried it,--and spread it forth upon his knees. Drawing the light nearer to him, he began to examine the contents of that massive volume. How his countenance underwent all changes of expression, as page after page was disclosed to his gaze! At first his lip curled, and his brow grew dark,--there was doubtless much to move contempt and hatred in those pages,--but as he read on, his large gray eyes, dilating in their sockets, shone with steady light; every lineament of his countenance, manifested profound, absorbing interest. The Red Book!