sed, while he stood looking

quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once again

he touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the fine

point of a small sword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him

through the body, and said, “My friend, I will die, perpetuating the

system under which I have lived.”

When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and

put his box in his pocket.

“Better to be a rational creature,” he added then, after ringing a

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small bell on the table, “and accept your natural destiny. But you

are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see.”

“This property and France are lost to me,” said the nephew,

sadly; “I renounce them.”

“Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the

property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet?”

“I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it

passed to me from you, tomorrow”

“Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable.”

“or twenty years hence”

“You do me too much honour,” said the Marquis; “still, I prefer

that supposition.”

“I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is

little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!”

“Hah!” said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room.