Then she opened the door ajar, looked out into the corridor and,
in a low voice, said:
"He must have gone up higher." Suddenly she exclaimed: "He is
coming down again!"
She tried to close the door, but Raoul prevented her; for he had seen,
on the top step of the staircase that led to the floor above,
A RED FOOT, followed by another...and slowly, majestically,
the whole scarlet dress of Red Death met his eyes. And he once
more saw the death's head of Perros-Guirec.
"It's he!" he exclaimed. "This time, he shall not escape me!..."
But Christian{sic} had slammed the door at the moment when Raoul
was on the point of rushing out. He tried to push her aside.
"Whom do you mean by `he'?" she asked, in a changed voice.
"Who shall not escape you?"
Raoul tried to overcome the girl's resistance by force, but she
repelled him with a strength which he would not have suspected in her.
He understood, or thought he understood, and at once lost his temper.
"Who?" he repeated angrily. "Why, he, the man who hides behind
that hideous mask of death!...The evil genius of the churchyard
at Perros!...Red Death!.
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