nephew to his chamber there!And burn Monsieur my nephew in

his bed, if you will,” he added to himself, before he rang his little

bell again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom.

The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and

fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep,

that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered

feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:

looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked

sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either

just going off, or just coming on.

He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bed room, looking

again at the scraps of the day’s journey that came unbidden into

his mind; the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the

descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little village in the

hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender of roads with

his blue cap pointing out the chain under the carriage. That

fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little bundle lying on

the step, the woman bending over it, and the tall man with his

arms up, crying, “Dead!”

“I am cool now,” said Monsieur the Marquis, “and may go to

bed.”

So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his

thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the nigh