the corpse--the widow--famine and woe! Such is a great city! such, above
all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such antagonist
varieties of the social state! Nothing strange in this; it is strange
and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each other, that
the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress, but she did
not know the distress so close at hand. The music that had charmed her
guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and hunger. Morton
passed the first room--a second--he came to a third, and Eugenie de
Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her an apparition that
might well have alarmed the boldest. His head was uncovered--his dark
hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the pale face and
features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the beauty which an
artist would impart to a young gladiator--stamped with defiance, menace,
and despair. The disordered garb--the fierce aspect--the dark eyes, that
literally shone through the shadows of the room-all conspired to increase
the terror of so abrupt a presence.

"What are you?--What do you seek here?" said she, falteringly, placing
her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid his
own.

"I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can
you save me?"

As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and
steps and voices were at hand.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. "And is it to
you that I have fled?"