se a
little inconvenience, and thus prove my own importance. You think that
it is yourself who sends me away, and your father cannot afford to
lose my services at this time. You consider it your duty to suppress
your own feelings, and tread under foot your own pride--to serve the
Vicomte. Your pride further prompts you to give me permission to
think what I like of you. Thank you, Mademoiselle."

I was making pretence, in a shallow way no doubt, to study the papers
on the table, and Lucille standing before my desk was looking down at
my bent head, noting perhaps the grey hairs there. Thus we remained
for a minute in silence.

Then turning, she slowly left the room, and I would have given five
years of my life to see the expression of her face.

Chapter XIII

The Shadow Again

"Qui ne craint pas la mort craint donc la vie."

As I sat in my study, the sounds of the house gradually ceased, and
the quiet of night settled down between its ancient walls. It seemed
to me at times that the Vicomte was moving in his own room. I knew,
however, that the passage between us was locked on both sides. My old
patron had said nothing to me on the subject, but I had found the door
bolted and the key removed. I never was the man to intrude upon
another's privacy, and respected the Vicomte's somewhat
incomprehensible humour at this time.

I scarcely knew at what hour I at last went to bed; but the oil in my
lamp was nearly exhausted and the candles had burnt low. Taking up one
of these, I went to my bedroom, pausing at the head of the black
staircase to listen as one instinctively does in a great silence. The
household was asleep. A faint patter broke the stillness; Lucille's
dog--a small white shadow in the gloom--came towards me from her
bedroom, outside of which he slept. He looked up at me with a
restrained jerk of the tail, for we were always friends, and his
expression said:

"Anything wrong?"

He glanced back over his shoulder to Lucille's door, as if to intimate
that his own charge was, at all events, safe; then he passed me, and
pressed his inquiring nose to the threshold of the Vicomte's study
door. He was a singular little dog, with a deep sense of
responsibility, which he only laid aside in Lucille's presence. In
which he resembled his betters. Men are usually at ease of mind in the
presence of one woman only. At night I often heard him blowing the
dust from his nostrils at the threshold of my door, whi