old cur. I had forgotten him. Jonquil,
Jonquil! come here, boy."

The old dog came scrambling along, and looking up into Le Prun's face,
yelped strangely.

"What!--hungry? They have forgotten you, I dare say. What! not a scrap,
not a bone! But where is your master?"

Le Prun entered the inner room, and the dog, preceding him, ran behind
the fauteuil that stood at the table; and then running a step or two
towards Le Prun, raised a howl that made him jump.

"Hey! what's the matter? But, sacre! there _is_ something--what is
this?"

There was a candle burning on the table, and writing materials. The
Visconte de Charrebourg, who had evidently been writing, had fallen
forward upon the table--dead. Le Prun touched him, he was quite cold. He
raised the tall lank figure as well as he could, so that it leaned back
in the chair; a little blood came from the corner of the mouth, the eyes
were glazed, but the features wore, even in death, a character of
sternness and dignity. He had fallen forward upon the fingers that held
the pen, and the hand came stiffly back along with the body, still
holding the pen in the attitude in which the chill of death had
stiffened them. In this attitude he looked as if he only awaited a
phrase or a thought of which he was in search to resume his writing.

"Dead--dead--a long time dead! how the devil has all this happened?"

And he looked for a moment at the old hound that was sniffing and
whimpering in his master's ears, as if he could answer him. Poor
Jonquil! he has shared his master's fortune fairly--the better and the
worse; for years his humble comrade in the sylvan solitudes of
Charrebourg, and here the solitary witness of his parting moment. Who
can say with what more than human grief that dumb heart is swelling! He
will not outlive his old friend many days--Jonquil is past the age for
making new ones.

Le Prun glanced at the letter, a few lines of which the dead man had
traced when he was thus awfully interrupted. "Sir," it began, "the
family of Charrebourg, of which I am the unworthy representative, have
been remarkable at all times for a chivalric and honorable spirit. They
have maintained their dignity in prosperity by great deeds and princely
munificence--in adversity, by encountering grief with patience, and
insolence with defiance. Insult has never approached them unexpiated by
blood; and I, old as I am, in consequence of what this morning----" here
the summons had interrupted