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Jean walked past me as though I didn’t exist. But the Chevalier Futaine paused, his eyebrows lifted. His black eyes pierced through me.

The handle of the knife was hot in my hand. I moved aside to block Futaine’s way. Behind me came a rustle of silk, and from the corner of my eye I saw Jean pause hesitatingly.

The chevalier eyed me, toying negligently with his handkerchief. “Mart,” he said slowly. “Mart Prescott.” His eyes flickered toward the knife, and a little smile touched his lips.

I said, “You know why I’m here, don't you?”

“Yes,” he said. “I—heard you. I was not disturbed. Only one thing can open this door.”

From his pocket he drew a key, shining with a dull silver sheen.

“Only this,” he finished, replacing it. “Your knife is useless, Mart Prescott.”

“Maybe,” I said, edging forward very slightly. “What have you done to Jean?”

A curious expression, almost of pain, flashed into his eyes. “She is mine,” he shot out half angrily. “You can do nothing, for—”

I sprang then, or, at least, I tried to. The blade of the knife sheared down straight for Futaine’s white shirtfront. It was arrested in midair. Yet he had not moved. His eyes had bored into mine, suddenly, terribly, and it seemed as though a wave of fearful energy had blasted out at me—paralyzing me, rendering me helpless. I stood rigid. Veins throbbed in my temples as I tried to move—to bring down the knife. It was useless. I stood as immovable as a statue.

The chevalier brushed past me.

“Follow,” he said almost casually, and like an automaton I swung about, began to move along the passage. What hellish hypnotic power was this that held me helpless?

Futaine led the way upstairs. It was not yet dark, although the sun had gone down. I followed him into a room, and at his gesture dropped into a chair. At my side was a small table. The chevalier touched my arm gently, and something like a mild electric shock went through me. The knife dropped from my fingers, clattering to the table.

Jean was standing rigidly nearby, her eyes dull and expressionless. Futaine moved to her side, put an arm about her waist. My mouth felt as though it were filled with mud, but somehow I managed to croak out articulate words.

“Damn you, Futaine! Leave her alone!”

He released her, and came toward me, his face dark with anger.

"You fool, I could kill you now, very easily. I could make you go down to the busiest corner of Hollywood and slit your throat with that knife. I have the—”

The face ot a beast looking into mine. He snarled. “She is not yours. Nor is she—Jean. She is Sonya.”

I remembered what Futaine had murmured when he had first seen Jean. He read the question in my eyes.

“I knew a girl like that once, very long ago. That was Sonya. They killed her—put a stake through her heart, long ago in Thurn. Now that I’ve found this girl, who might be a reincarnation of Sonya—they are so alike—I shall not give her up. Nor can anyone force me.”

“You've made her a devil like yourself,” I said through half-paralyzed lips. “I’d rather kill her—”

Futaine turned to watch Jean. “Not yet,” he said softly. “She is mine—yes. She bears the stigmata. But she is still—alive. She will not become—wampyr until she has died, or until she has tasted the red milk. She shall do that tonight.” I cursed him bitterly, foully. He touched my lips, and I could utter no sound. Then they left me—Jean and her master. I heard a door close quietly.

The night dragged on. Futile struggles had convinced me that it was useless to attempt escape—I could not even force a whisper through my lips. More than once I felt myself on the verge of madness—thinking of Jean, and remembering Futaine’s ominous words. Eventually agony brought its own surcease, and I fell into a kind of coma, lasting for how long I could not guess. Many hours had passed, I knew, before I heard footsteps coming toward my prison.

Jean moved into my range of vision. I searched her face with my eyes, seeking for some mark of a dreadful metamorphosis. I could find none. Her beauty was unmarred, save for the terrible little wounds on her throat. She went to a couch and quietly lay down. Her eyes closed.

The chevalier came past me and went to Jean’s side. He stood looking down at her. I have mentioned before the incongruous youthfulness of his face. That was gone now. He looked old—old beyond imagination.

At last he shrugged and turned to me. His fingers brushed my lips again, and I found that I could speak. Life flooded back into my veins, benign lancing twinges of pain. I moved an arm experimentally. The paralysis was leaving me. The chevalier said, “She is still—clean. I could not do it.”

Amazement flooded me. My eyes widened in disbelief.

Futaine smiled wryly. “It is quite true. I could have made her as myself—undead. But at the last moment I forbade her.” He looked toward the windows. “It will be dawn soon.”

I glanced at the knife on the table beside me. The chevalier put out a hand and drew it away.

“Wait,” he said. “There is something I must tell you, Mart Prescott. You say that you know who and what I am.”

I nodded.

“Through the ages I have come, since first I fell victim to another vampire—for thus is the evil spread. Deathless and not alive, bringing fear and sorrow always, knowing the bitter agony of Tantalus, I have gone down through the weary centuries. I have known Richard and Henry and Elizabeth of England, and ever have I brought terror and destruction in the night, for I am an alien thing, I am the undead.”

The quiet voice went on, holding me motionless in its weird spell.

“I, the vampire. I, the accursed, the shining evil, negotium perambulans in tenebris . . . but I was not always thus. Long ago in Thurn, before the shadow leapt upon me, I loved a girl—Sonya. But the vampire visited me, and I sickened and died—and awoke. Then I arose.

“It is the curse of the undead to prey upon those they love. I visited Sonya.

“I made her my own. She, too, died, and for a brief while we walked the earth together, neither alive nor dead. But that was not Sonya. It was her body, yes, but I had not loved her body alone. I realized too late that I had destroyed her utterly.”

“One day they opened her grave, and the priest drove a stake through her heart, and gave her rest. Me they could not find, for my coffin was hidden too well. I put love behind me then, knowing that there was none for such as I.

“Hope came to me when I found—Jean. Hundreds of years have passed since Sonya crumbled to dust, but I thought I had found her again. And—I took her. Nothing human could prevent me.”

The chevalier’s eyelids sagged. He looked infinitely old.

“Nothing human. Yet in the end I found that I could not condemn her to the It.'ll that is mine. I thought I had forgotten love. But, long and long ago, I loved Sonya. And, because of her, and because I know that I would only destroy, as I did once before, I shall not work my will on this girl.”

I turned to watch the still figure on the couch. The chevalier followed my gaze and nodded slowly.

“Yes, she bears the stigmata. She will die, unless”—he met my gaze unblinkingly—“unless I die. If you had broken into the vault yesterday, if you had sunk that knife into my heart, she would be free now.” He glanced at the windows again. “The sun will rise soon.”

Then he went quickly to Jean’s side. He looked down at her for a moment. “She is very beautiful,” he murmured. “Too beautiful for hell.”

The chevalier swung about, went toward the door. As he passed me he threw something carelessly on the table, something that tinkled as it fell. In the portal he paused, and a little smile twisted the scarlet lips. I remembered him thus, framed against the black background of the doorway, his sleek blond head erect and unafraid. He lifted his arm in a gesture that should have been theatrical, but, somehow, wasn't.

“And so farewell. I who am about to die—”

He did not finish. In the faint grayness of dawn I saw him striding away, heard his footsteps on the stairs, receding and faint—heard a muffled clang as of a great door closing. The paralysis had left me. I was trembling a little, for I realized what I must do soon. But I knew I would not fail.

I glanced down at the table. Even before I saw what lay beside the knife, I knew what would be there. A silver key. . . .