I even let the little phantom glide into my reverie without being startled.  I even speculated on the old theme which had so haunted me.  I wondered whether my suspicions had been correct, and whether—­whether Madame C——­ was guilty of sending her little son before her into the other world.  So thinking,—­I might have been almost dreaming,—­a slight rustle in the shop aroused me.  I was not alarmed; my nerves are now much healthier, and I wisely make a point of not getting them unstrung by violent movements, or unaccustomed feats of activity, when anything astonishing happens.  I therefore lifted my head calmly and looked about,—­it might be a mouse.  The noise ceased that instant, as if the intruder were aware of being observed.  Mice sometimes have this instinct.  We had some valuable new confections, which I had no desire should be disposed of by such customers.  So, taking up my lamp, and peering cautiously about me, I proceeded to the shop.  The light flickered,—­flickered on something tall and white,—­something white and shadowy, standing erect, and shrinking aside, behind the counter.  My heart stood still; a sepulchral chill came over me.  My old self, trembling, angry, foreboding, stepped suddenly within the niche whence the self-confident, full-grown, sensible woman had vanished utterly.  For an instant, I felt like a ghost myself.  It seemed natural that ghosts, if such there were, should spy me out, and appall my heart with their presence.  For there, in that old, haunted spot, where long years ago the spectre of little Jacques had lifted its menacing finger, stood the form of Marie, Madame C——.  I knew it well; shuddering and shivering myself, more like an intruder than one intruded upon, I laid my hand upon the chill marble counter for support.  It was no creation of imagination; the figure laid its hand also upon the marble, and, stretching over its gaunt neck, stood and peered into my eyes.

“Madame C——!  Madame C——!” I cried; “what in the name of God would you have of me?”

“Nothing,” she answered,—­“nothing of you,—­and nothing in the name of God.  Oh, you need not shudder at me,—­Christine C——!  I know you well enough.  You haven’t got over your old tricks yet.  I’m no ghost, though.  Mayhap you’d rather I’d be, for all your nerves, eh?”—­and she shook her head in the old vengeful, threatening way.

It was true enough.  “What evil atmosphere surrounded me?  What fell snare environed me?  I looked about like a hunted animal brought to bay,—­like a robber suddenly entrapped in the midst of his ill-gotten gains.  For this was no dead woman, but a living vengeance, more terrible than death, brought to my very door.  Some unseen power, it seemed, full of evil influence, full of malignant justice, stretched its long arms through my life, and would not let me by any means escape to peace, to rest.  A direful vision of horrible struggles yet to come—­of want, despair, disgrace in reservation—­sickened my soul.