lmost
an infernal beauty. Through the painful contraction of his features
shone the pride of savage triumph; the monster felt that he was becoming
once more strong and powerful, and he seemed conscious the evils that
his fatal resurrection was to cause. And so, of still writhing beneath
the flames, he pronounced these words, the first that struggled from his
chest: "I told you I should live!"

"You told us true," cried the doctor, feeling his pulse; "the
circulation is now full and regular, the lungs are free. The reaction is
complete. You are saved."

At this moment, the last shreds of cotton had burnt out. The trivets
were withdrawn, and on the skeleton trunk of Rodin were seen four large
round blisters. The skin still smoked, and the raw flesh was visible
beneath. In one of his sudden movements, a lamp had been misplaced, and
one of these burns was larger than the other, presenting as it were to
the eye a double circle. Rodin looked down upon his wounds. After
some seconds of silent contemplation, a strange smile curled his lips.
Without changing his position, he glanced at Father d'Aigrigny with an
expression impossible to describe, and said to him, as he slowly
counted the wounds touching them with his flat and dirty nail:
"Father d'Aigrigny, what an omen!--Look here! one Rennepont--two
Renneponts--three Renneponts--four Renneponts--where is then the
fifth!--Ah! here--this wound will count for two. They are twins."(41)
And he emitted a little dry, bitter laugh. Father d'Aigrigny, the
cardinal, and Dr. Baleinier, alone understood the sense of these
mysterious and fatal words, which Rodin soon completed by a terrible
allusion, as he exclaimed, with prophetic voice, and almost inspired
air: "Yes, I say it. The impious race will be reduced to ashes, like
the fragments of this poor flesh. I say it, and it will be so. I said I
would live--and I do live!"

(41) Jacques Rennepont being dead, and Gabriel out of the field, in
consequence of his donation, there remained only five persons of the
family--Rose and Blanche, Djalma, Adrienne, and Hardy.

CHAPTER XXXI. VICE AND VIRTUE.

Two days have elapsed since Rodin was miraculously restored to life. The
reader will not have forgotten the house in the Rue Clovis, where the
reverend father had an apartment, and where also was the lodging of
Philemon, inhabited by Rose-Pompon. It is about three o'clock in the
afternoon. A bright ray of light, penetrating through a rou