; but the present import may be
your destruction.'

The Count could not forbear smiling; 'Do you think then, Baron,' said
he, 'that my destruction is of sufficient importance to draw back
to earth the soul of the departed? Alas! my good friend, there is no
occasion for such means to accomplish the destruction of any individual.
Wherever the mystery rests, I trust I shall, this night, be able to
detect it. You know I am not superstitious.'

'I know that you are incredulous,' interrupted the Baron.

'Well, call it what you will, I mean to say, that, though you know I am
free from superstition--if any thing supernatural has appeared, I doubt
not it will appear to me, and if any strange event hangs over my house,
or if any extraordinary transaction has formerly been connected with it,
I shall probably be made acquainted with it. At all events I will invite
discovery; and, that I may be equal to a mortal attack, which in good
truth, my friend, is what I most expect, I shall take care to be well
armed.'

The Count took leave of his family, for the night, with an assumed
gaiety, which but ill concealed the anxiety, that depressed his spirits,
and retired to the north apartments, accompanied by his son and followed
by the Baron, M. Du Pont and some of the domestics, who all bade him
good night at the outer door. In these chambers every thing appeared
as when he had last been here; even in the bed-room no alteration was
visible, where he lighted his own fire, for none of the domestics could
be prevailed upon to venture thither. After carefully examining the
chamber and the oriel, the Count and Henri drew their chairs upon the
hearth, set a bottle of wine and a lamp before them, laid their swords
upon the table, and, stirring the wood into a blaze, began to converse
on indifferent topics. But Henri was often silent and abstracted, and
sometimes threw a glance of mingled awe and curiosity round the gloomy
apartment; while the Count gradually ceased to converse, and sat either
lost in thought, or reading a volume of Tacitus, which he had brought to
beguile the tediousness of the night.

CHAPTER IV

Give thy thoughts no tongue.
SHAKESPEARE

The Baron St. Foix, whom anxiety for his friend had kept awake, rose
early to enquire the event of the night, when, as he passed the Count's
closet, hearing steps within, he knocked at the door, and it was opened
by his friend himself. Rejoicing to see him in safety, and curi