"

He descended his staircase, crossed the road--forming, as he did so, his
features into their most amiable and gracious expression--and knocked at
his neighbor's door.

He remarked the creaking of the staircase, the sound of a hurried
footstep, and yet he waited long enough to feel warranted in knocking
again.

At this fresh summons the door opened, and the outline of a man appeared
in the gloom.

"Thank you, and good-evening," said Chicot, holding out his hand; "here
I am back again, and I am come to return you my thanks, my dear
neighbor."

"I beg your pardon," inquiringly observed a voice, in a tone of
disappointment, the accent of which greatly surprised Chicot.

At the same moment the man who had opened the door drew back a step or
two.

"Stay, I have made a mistake," said Chicot, "you were not my neighbor
when I left, and yet I know who you are."

"And I know you too," said the young man.

"You are Monsieur le Vicomte Ernanton de Carmainges."

"And you are 'The Shade.'"

"Really," said Chicot, "I am quite bewildered."

"Well, and what do you want, monsieur?" inquired the young man, somewhat
churlishly.

"Excuse me, but I am interrupting you, perhaps, my dear monsieur?"

"No, only you will allow me to ask you what you may want."

"Nothing, except that I wished to speak to the master of this house."

"Speak, then."

"What do you mean?"

"I am the master of the house, that is all."

"You? since when, allow me to ask?"

"Diable! since the last three days."

"Good! the house was for sale then?"

"So it would seem, since I have bought it."

"But the former proprietor?"

"No longer lives here, as you see."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Come, come, let us understand each other," said Chicot.

"There is nothing I should like better," replied Ernanton, with visible
impatience, "only let us do so without losing any time."

"The former proprietor was a man between five-and-twenty and thirty
years of age, but who looked as if he were forty."

"No; he was a man of about sixty-five or sixty-six years old, who looked
his age quite."

"Bald?"

"No, on the contrary, a perfect forest of white hair."

"With an enormous scar on the left side of the head, had he not?"

"I did not observe the scar, but I did a good number of furrows."

"I cannot understand it at all," said Chicot.

"Well," resumed Ernanton, after a moment's silence, "what did you want
with that man, my dear Monsie