many a peasant, gone to his benefactor

Death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry.

Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for

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the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going

on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. This

thrown open, admitted him to his own private apartment of three

rooms: his bedchamber and two others. High vaulted rooms with

cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths for the

burning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries befitting the state

of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The fashion of the last

Louis but one, of the line that was never to breakthe fourteenth

Louiswas conspicuous in their rich furniture; but, it was

diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in

the history of France.

A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a

round room, in one of the chateau’s four extinguisher-topped

towers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and the

wooden jalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only showed

in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad

lines of stone colour.

“My nephew,” said the Marquis, glancing at the supper

preparation; “they said he was not arrived.”

Nor was he; but, he had been expected with Mons