"The book is safe in my house," said Barnhurst, advancing, his face glowing with satisfaction. "This fellow, it appears, is safe. I pledge my word to have that book in this room before an hour." Godiva, looking over his shoulder, muttered in atone inaudible to the others: "And my manuscript is in the book, and I pledge my word to have that within an hour." "If you do that, Herman, I'll sell my soul for you!" cried the Madam, warmly. "Suppose we look at the--_the patient_," whispered Herman. "Up-stairs in the same room;" and Herman and Godiva left her room together, and directed their steps toward the chamber of Alice. "The book is safe; he'll keep his word--don't you think so, Corkins?" said the Madam, as she found herself once more alone with her familiar spirit. "Safe--perfectly," returned Corkins, when his words were interrupted by the ring of a bell. It was the front door bell this time. Corkins hurried from the room, and in a few moments returned, and placed a card in the hands of the Madam: "This person wants to see you." Drawing near the candle, the Madam read upon the card this name--"DR. ARTHUR CONROY." A name, you will remember, associated with the history of Marion Merlin. It was Arthur Conroy, who, in the dissecting room, saw the corpse before him start suddenly into life. "Dr. Conroy!"--it seemed a familiar name to the Madam. "I wonder if he wants a subject? Show him up, Corkins." * * * * * Through the bowed window-shutters and the drawn curtains, the winter sunlight stole into the chamber of Alice, lighting up the bed, and touching with a few golden rays the face of the Virgin Mary on the wall. Herman and Godiva stood by the bed, their backs toward the window, and their faces from the light. They did not speak. The room was breathlessly still. Alice was there, resting on the bed, the coverlet drawn up to her neck, and her cheek pressed against the pillow, thus turning her face to the light. One hand and arm lay motionless on the coverlet, and her sunny hair strayed in unbound luxuriance over the pillow. Her eyes were closed; her lips slightly parted; her cheek pale as the pillow on which she slept: for she was sleeping. A bright ray, that found entrance through an aperture in the curtains, was playing over her face, now on her lips, now on her throat, and among the waves of her silken hair. The sight was so beautiful that Godiva, whose heart had long since ceased to feel, was awed into silence. As for Herman, he could not take his eyes away, but stood there with his gaze chained to the face of the sleeping girl; for she was sleeping--sleeping that dear, quiet sleep, which, in this world, never knows an awakening hour. In the language of the woman-fiend, she indeed "was _well_!" Dead, with the second life which she bore, dead within her. Poor Alice! She had only opened her wings in the world, to fold them again and die.