gate, I would not recoil."




CHAPTER XVI

"IT IS A MAN THEY ARE DEVOURING!"

Michel Menko was right. The beautiful Tzigana was awaiting him.

She stood at her window, like a spectre in her white dress, her hands
clutching the sill, and her eyes striving to pierce the darkness which
enveloped everything, and opened beneath her like a black gulf. With
heart oppressed with fear, she started at the least sound.

All she could see below in the garden were the branches defined against
the sky; a single star shining through the leaves of a poplar, like a
diamond in a woman's tresses; and under the window the black stretch of
the lawn crossed by a band of a lighter shade, which was the sand of the
path. The only sound to be heard was the faint tinkle of the water
falling into the fountain.

Her glance, shifting as her thoughts, wandered vaguely over the trees,
the open spaces which seemed like masses of heavy clouds, and the sky set
with constellations. She listened with distended ears, and a shudder
shook her whole body as she heard suddenly the distant barking of a dog.

The dog perceived some one. Was it Menko?