was in some sort a type of the wretched dwellings in the suburb; a
tumble-down hovel, built of rough stones, daubed over with a coat of
yellowish stucco, and so riven with great cracks that there seemed to
be danger lest the slightest puff of wind might blow it down. The
roof, covered with brown moss-grown tiles, had given way in several
places, and looked as though it might break down altogether under the
weight of the snow. The frames of the three windows on each story were
rotten with damp and warped by the sun; evidently the cold must find
its way inside. The house standing thus quite by itself looked like
some old tower that Time had forgotten to destroy. A faint light shone
from the attic windows pierced at irregular distances in the roof;
otherwise the whole building was in total darkness.

Meanwhile the old lady climbed not without difficulty up the rough,
clumsily built staircase, with a rope by way of a hand-rail. At the
door of the lodging in the attic she stopped and tapped mysteriously;
an old man brought forward a chair for her. She dropped into it at
once.

"Hide! hide!" she exclaimed, looking up at him. "Seldom as we leave
the house, everything that we do is known, and every step is
watched----"

"What is it now?" asked another elderly woman, sitting by the fire.

"The man that has been prowling about the house yesterday and to-day,
followed me to-night----"

At those words all three dwellers in the wretched den looked in each
other's faces and did not try to dissimulate the profound dread that