"Bring it entire--touch nothing! If you do not promise me I will raise the alarm here and now! To open it, I warn you, is to risk all!" "I will bring it!" Claude answered, his foot on the steps, his hand on the latch.

"I will bring it!" "Ay, but you do not know what hangs on it! You will bring it as you find it ?" His persistence was so strange, he clung to the young man's arm with so complete an abandonment of his ordinary manner, that, with the latch half raised, Claude looked at him in wonder.

"Very well, I will bring it as I find it!" he muttered.

Then, notwithstanding a movement which the Syndic made to restrain him, he pushed the door.
It was not locked, and, in a moment, he stood in the living-room which he had left little more than an hour before.

It was untenanted, but not in darkness; a rushlight, set in an earthen vessel on the hearth, flung long shadows on the walls and ceiling, and gave to the room, so homely in its every-day aspect, a sinister look.