indeed, risen from the dead, it could scarcely have appalled him more.
Madame Dalibard did not see the involuntary spy; for the recess in which
he had crept was on that side of the wall on which the moon's shadow was
cast. With a quick step she turned into another room, opposite that which
she had quitted, the door of which stood ajar, and vanished noiselessly
as she had appeared.

Taught suspicion by his earlier acquaintance with the "night-side" of
human nature, Beck had good cause for it here. This detection of an
imposture most familiar to his experience,--that of a pretended cripple;
the hour of the night; the evil expression on the face of the deceitful
guest; Madame Dalibard's familiar intimacy and near connection with
Varney,--Varney, the visitor to Grabman, who received no visitors but
those who desire, not to go to law, but to escape from its penalties;
Varney, who had dared to brave the resurrection man in his den, and who
seemed so fearlessly at home in abodes where nought but poverty could
protect the honest; Varney now, with that strange woman, an inmate of a
house in which the master was so young, so inexperienced, so liable to be
duped by his own generous nature,--all these ideas, vaguely combined,
inspired Beck with as vague a terror. Surely something, he knew not
what, was about to be perpetrated against his benefactor,--some scheme of
villany which it was his duty to detect. He breathed hard, formed his
resolves, and stealing on tiptoe, followed the shadowy form of the
poisoner through the half-opened doorway. The shutters of the room of
which he thus crossed the threshold were not closed,--the moon shone in
bright and still. He kept his body behind the door, peeping in with
straining, fearful stare. He saw Madame Dalibard standing beside a bed
round which the curtains were closed,--standing for a moment or so
motionless, and as if in the act of listening, with one hand on a table
beside the bed. He then saw her take from the folds of her dress