threats, and his anger
was so great that the wretched Isidore, shaking, whining, and cursing,
edged round the room with his back to the wall and his eyes fixed on his
master.

"Stand still, will you?" continued the Marquis; "I want to hear a little
more. How much were you paid for giving me this twaddle? Answer me
that."

"Two guineas!"

"Two? I'll bet you had twenty. Stand still, I tell you, or I'll kick you
again. Do you expect me to believe that Mrs. Parflete's servant gave you
twenty guineas?"

"No, I don't," answered Isidore. "I don't expect you to believe
anything. But if that isn't Madame Parflete's writing, whose writing is
it?"

"That is just what I mean to find out," replied Castrillon, "and that is
why I won't shoot you till it suits my convenience."

Isidore, who had a venomous attachment to the Marquis, burst into tears.
For many generations their respective ancestors had stood in the
relation, each to the other, of tyrant and dependent. Isidore's father
had robbed, cheated, deceived, and adored Castrillon's father; the
fathers of these two reprobates had observed the same measure of
whippings and treacheries, and so it had been always from the first
registered beginnings of the noble and the slavish house. But an Isidore
had never been known to leave a Castrillon's service. The hereditary,
easy-going forbearance, on the one hand, which found killing less
tedious than a crude dismissal, and the hereditary guilty conscience, on
the other, which had to recognise the justice of punishment, kept the
connection rudely loyal.

"I detest you," said Castrillon; "I hate the sight of you."

Isidore blubbered aloud, and accepted the information as a turn for the
better in the tide of his master's wrath.

"Who gave you that letter?"

"Well, if you must know, it was Signor Mudara."

"Mudara? Then Mudara wrote it. I'll wring his neck."

"I'll wring his neck, too--if he has tried any of his games on me,"
sobbed Isidore. "But it may not be a game. You are always so hasty."

Castrillon read the letter through once more.

"I can't believe that she wrote it," he said. "I'll swear she didn't."

"And why?"

"Because the style is not in keeping with her character, blockhead! She
does not ask me--or any one else--to visit her at two o'clock in the
morning."

A revolting smile made the valet's loose-hanging, sullen lips quiver
with emotion.

"No, that is not Madame's style. She is too clever. But does that