At this intelligence—and at a renewed occurrence of the chilling sound—Theresa fell to her knees on the damp stone of the stairs, clasping at her cousin’s hand with quivering fingers, lifting up her beauteous and tear-stained face in blind beseeching. “Oh, my cousin, my guardian, to whom my parents trusted me in their hour of death, in the name of all that you hold dear, take me no farther, do not make me go before this alchemist, for I swear by heaven the thought of him terrifies me exceedingly.”

Her fear charged her tender limbs with peculiar strength and for several moments she held Conrad immobile so that he peered down at her through the darkness, confused.

“Not go? Not go?” said he. “When I have sent for him, waited for him all this time? When he has traveled to me all the way from Rome? Not go?”

He knelt before his cousin, took her soft shoulders in his strong hands so that, for an instant, she fancied he might be about to show some familial compassion to assuage her torment of suspense. But Conrad, by a brutal exertion, only lifted her once more to her feet, compelled her once more to rise towards the flames and the hammering.

Tink-tink, tink-tink.

“Not go?” Conrad whispered in Theresa’s ear as he carried her all but limp form up another step and another until they neared the top. “When he is known to possess the greatest knowledge of the ancient mysteries of any man alive? Not go to him, my child? When for my sake—nay! for the sake of my beloved Anna, who this bleak, desolate, seemingly endless year past has lain mercilessly imprisoned in her tomb, that flesh which once gave to me my greatest pleasure unpreserved by the tears which I have lavished upon it night after night—when for her sake, I say, he has composed a potion which will restore her to my arms, to my desire—to my love which is so great that it transcends the fear of earthly decay and merely waits for the opportunity to enfold her as in our happy days of yore? Not go? How can you say such a thing, my dear little Theresa? The work is almost complete! The potion of resurrection is freshly prepared!”

And so saying, Conrad brought the girl to the top of the spiral staircase and came before a great door of solid iron, which stood ajar so that the dancing scarlet light of the flame and the repeated metallic percussions seeped out onto the landing where the cousins stood. With a mighty effort of one hand, Conrad opened the door wide, while with the other he dragged the all but insensible Theresa into the room beyond.