When I awoke, he was still asleep, but the fever had broken. Madame Miron's tea had worked.

I got up as quietly as possible and adjusted the blanket over him. It was almost madness to think that I had just spent the night sleeping beside the man known as the Phantom of the Opera. A man who had killed for the woman he loved, the woman he had lost.

Looking around his home, I decided I would try to straighten it up. So, I ignored that fact that I was rather hungry and began to picked up the scattered sheets of music, the broken candles. The monkey music box lay on its side at the foot of the bed. I picked it up gingerly - I did not want to trigger the mechanism - and set it on a shelf. I found the violin on the floor near an old settee in the bedroom. The strings were broken.

I sat down and looked at the violin. I remembered a night...it must have been over a year ago. I heard the sound a solitary violin echo so softly through the sleeping Opera House. I did not recognize the melody and could not tell if it was a sad love song or a tender lullaby. Maman did not awaken, but I had gotten out of bed and looked out into the hall. It was empty. But the music kept playing. I stood on my bed and looked out the tiny window onto the lower roof of the theatre. It seemed as if the music came from there. As the melody ended, I thought I saw a shadow moving across the far edge of roof in the heavy gray of the spring night.

Now I looked at the instrument and saw that it was a very fine one. I wondered sadly if this was the same violin I heard that night.

"Where is my mask, Mademoiselle Giry?"

I jumped up and hurried to his side. He struggled to sit up.

"Give me my mask, Mademoiselle."

I was about to tell him that it wasn't necessary...I was getting used to the sight of his face. But he held out his hand and I did not feel as if I could refuse him. I handed him the white mask that I had brought back.

I left him alone for a little while, then, and went back up to the theatre. I hurried to the theatre commissary and obtained some brioche and coffee. Carrying the food in a small basket, I went back down to the cellars.

I gave the Opera Ghost some brioche and freshly brewed coffee. As I settled into the chair next to his bed (which I believed was an old prop from an opera), he frowned at me.

"What do you want, Mademoiselle? What do you want from me? Singing lessons? I'm afraid the Angel of Music is no longer accepting students. Perhaps you thought I could assist your dancing career by blackmailing those idiots who mismanage my Opera House. At the moment, I don't think I have much influence with them. Besides, your mother and her ambitions for you ought to do the job well enough with any ghostly interference."

He paused and dipped a bit of brioche in the coffee.

"Why are you helping me," he continued.

"Because you needed helping. I couldn't just leave you here to die."

"Many people would have done so and without a second thought. It would have been better if you had."

He was silent for a time. I knew he was thinking of Christine.

Finally, he picked up one of the rolls and handed it to me.

"I'm being quite rude, Mademoiselle. We mustn't let you faint. I don't think I could carry you back up to your mother."

As I sat there, having coffee and brioche with the infamous Opera Ghost, many questions drifted into my mind. I felt certain he could not...and would not...hurt me...even if he was regaining strength...so I risked his temper.

"Why did you kill Joseph Buquet?"

"Surely, you have heard the saying kill or be killed," he said, without any anger, "You girls out to be thankful to me. He was always stalking about, peering into your dressing rooms, leering at you from the catwalks. Sooner or later, one of you would have been...hurt."

What he said was true. Buquet was a creepy fellow, always watching us young women with lust on his oily face, inviting himself into the chorus dormitories. He was a much more frightening to me than any ghost had ever been..

"What about Piangi?"

He frowned and pushed his coffee cup across the tray.

"I didn't set out to kill him. I only meant to keep him out of the way for Don Juan. He was fat, his heart gave out when I struck him. Since he was dead, I added the noose for the effect. The more terror I could bring into the theatre that night, the better. No doubt La Carlotta was devastated."

I forced myself to ask the next question.

"And the chandelier? That was no accident."

"No, Mademoiselle Giry, it was no accident. I would have destroyed my entire Opera House in order to keep Christine at my side. In the end, it was in vain."

There was no remorse in his voice. No regret for the people that had been killed and hurt. I was about to reproach him.

Then I thought of Messieurs Firmin and Andre. Neither of them had shown more than a very thin veneer of concern for the victims of the chandelier crash, only for the damage to the theatre and the effect on revenues.

"Now, Mademoiselle, it is my turn to ask you a question. What became of Monsieur Reyer? Was he hurt?"

"Reyer? He was able to scramble out of the way of the chandelier when it came down. He is unharmed, though shaken badly by it. Why do ask about him?"

"Because, of all the people in my Opera House, he is one of the few who is not a total fool. He is dedicated to his work and has some good sense. Like your mother."

I knew that I should leave; Maman would be expecting me at rehearsals soon. Now that I knew the Opera Ghost was recovering, I could go without worrying.

I gathered up my shawl, my rosary, and the basket from the commissary. He thanked me for my kindness in a most gentlemanly way.

Before I went out to the lake, though, I had two more questions for the Phantom of the Opera.

"Monsieur, may I come again sometime?"

He seemed quite surprised by this, as if he could not imagine anyone actually willing to visit his underground home.

"If you wish, Mademoiselle," he said with a shrug.

My next question surprised him even more.

"I can hardly call you Opera Ghost or Monsieur Phantom. Do you have a name? A real name?"

"Yes," he said slowly, his beautiful voice tinged with disbelief, "yes, my name is...it's Erik."

As I guided the boat across the lake, I heard his voice again, a low whisper carrying across the water.

"Christine never asked my name."