The air seemed heavy, laden with some strange drug; the house was still, with the stillness which precedes horror.

Not many men of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would have opened that door, or at that hour of the night would have entered that room.

But Claude, though he feared, though he shuddered, though unearthly terrors pressed upon him, possessed a charm that supported his courage: the memory of the scene in the room below, of the scalding drops falling on the white skin, of the girl looking at him with that face of pain.

The devil was strong, but there was a stronger; and in the strength of love the young man approached the door and tried it.

It was locked.
Somehow the fact augmented his courage.