is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will be here
presently.«
    Out of this question and reply sprang a change in the chat - chat it still
remained - easy, desultory, familiar gossip. Hint, allusion, comment, went round
the circle, but all so broken, so dependent on references to persons not named,
or circumstances not defined, that, listen intently as I would - and I did
listen now with a fated interest - I could make out no more than that some
scheme was on foot, in which this ghostly Justine Marie - dead or alive - was
concerned. This family-junta seemed grasping at her somehow, for some reason;
there seemed question of a marriage, of a fortune, for whom I could not quite
make out - perhaps for Victor Kint, perhaps for Josef Emanuel - both were
bachelors. Once I thought the hints and jests rained upon a young fair-haired
foreigner of the party, whom they called Heinrich Mühler. Amidst all the
badinage, Madame Walravens still obtruded, from time to time, hoarse,
cross-grained speeches; her impatience being diverted only by an implacable
surveillance of Désirée, who could not stir, but the old woman menaced her with
her staff.
    »La voilà!« suddenly cried one of the gentlemen, »voilà Justine Marie qui
arrive!«
    This moment was for me peculiar. I called up to memory the pictured nun on
the panel; present to my mind was the sad love-story; I saw in thought the
vision of the garret, the apparition of the alley, the strange birth of the
berceau: I underwent a presentiment of discovery, a strong conviction of coming
disclosure. Ah! when imagination once runs riot where do we stop? What winter
tree so bare and branchless - what way-side, hedge-munching animal so humble,
that Fancy, a passing cloud, and a struggling moonbeam, will not clothe it in
spirituality, and make of it a phantom?
    With solemn force pressed on my heart the expectation of mystery breaking
up: hitherto I had seen this spectre only through a glass darkly; now was I to
behold it face to face. I leaned forward: I looked.
    »She comes!« cried Josef Emanuel.
    The circle moved as if opening to admit a new and welcome member. At this
instant a torch chanced to be carried past; its blaze aided the pale moon in
doing justice to the crisis, in lighting to perfection the dénouement pressing
on. Surely those near me must have felt some little of the anxiety I felt, in
degree