ectre as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they
could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in
little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more
stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having
been extinguished.

The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many overhanging trees,
was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow was exchanged
for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great door
of his chateau was opened to him.

"Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?"

"Monseigneur, not yet."

THE GORGON'S HEAD

It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis,
with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stone sweeps of
staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony
business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, and
stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in all
directions. As if the Gorgon's head had surveyed it when it was finished
two centuries ago.

Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis,
flambeau-preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the
darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the
great pile of stable-building away among the trees. All else was so
quiet that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeau
held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state,
instead of being in the open night air. Other sound than the owl's voice
there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for
it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour
together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.

The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis crossed a
hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and knives of the chase;
grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and riding-whips, of which many a
peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord
was angry.

Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night,
Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going on before, went up
the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open admitted him to
his own private apartment of three rooms; his bedchamber and two others.
High vaulted rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the
hearths f