tell us, tell your benefactress and me, to whom does that voice belong? If you do, we will save you in spite of yourself. Come, Christine, the name of the man! The name of the man who had the audacity to put a ring on your finger!'

`M. de Chagny,' the girl declared coldly, `you shall never know!'

Thereupon, seeing the hostility with which her ward had addressed the viscount, Mamma Valérius suddenly took Christine's part.

`And, if she does love that man, Monsieur le Vicomte, even then it is no business of yours!'

`Alas, madame,' Raoul humbly replied, unable to restrain his tears, `alas, I believe that Christine really does love him!...But it is not only that which drives me to despair; for what I am not certain of, madame, is that the man whom Christine loves is worthy of her love!'

`It is for me to be the judge of that, monsieur!' said Christine, looking Raoul angrily in the face.

`When a man,' continued Raoul, `adopts such romantic methods to entice a young girl's affections...'

`The man must be either a villain, or the girl a fool: is that it?'

`Christine!'

`Raoul, why do you condemn a man whom you have never seen, whom no one knows and about whom you yourself know nothing?'

`Yes, Christine....Yes....I at least know the name that you thought to keep from me for ever....The name of your Angel of Music, mademoiselle, is Erik!'

Christine at once betrayed herself. She turned as white as a sheet and stammered: `Who told you?'

`You yourself!'

`How do you mean?'

`By pitying him the other night, the night of the masked ball. When you went to your dressing-room, did you not say, `Poor Erik?' Well, Christine, there was a poor Raoul who overheard you.'

`This is the second time that you have listened behind the door, M. de Chagny!'

`I was not behind the door...I was in the dressing-room, in the inner room, mademoiselle.'

`Oh, unhappy man!' moaned the girl, showing every sign of unspeakable terror. `Unhappy man! Do you want to be killed?'

`Perhaps.'

Raoul uttered this `perhaps' with so much love and despair in his voice that Christine could not keep back a sob. She took his hands and looked at him with all the pure affection of which she was capable:

`Raoul,' she said, `forget the man's voice and do not even remember its name... You must never try to fathom the mystery of the man's voice.'

`Is the mystery so very terrible?'

`There is no more awful mystery on this earth. Swear to me that you will make no attempt to find out,' she insisted. `Swear to me that you will never come to my dressing-room, unless I send for you.'


  By PanEris using Melati.

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