eir backs, may have to do some day--work."

"In England, for example?"

"Yes. The family honor, sir, is safe for me in this country. The family
name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other."

The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bedchamber to be
lighted. It now shone brightly through the door of communication. The
Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step of his
valet.

"England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have
prospered there," he observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew
with a smile.

"I have already said that for my prospering there, I am sensible I may
be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge."

"They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. You
know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?"

"Yes."

"With a daughter?"

"Yes."

"Yes," said the Marquis. "You are fatigued. Good-night!"

As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy in
his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words,
which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same time,
the thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and the thin
straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that
looked handsomely diabolic.

"Yes," repeated the Marquis. "A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. So
commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good-night!"

It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone fence
outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephew
looked at him in vain, in passing on to the door.

"Good-night!" said the uncle, "I look to the pleasure of seeing you
again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my 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 bedroom, looking again at the
scraps of