ncle went into the dining-room underneath me, and for twenty minutes
I heard nothing more of him, save the ring of his wineglass as he struck
on it to summon Madeleine.

He had hardly finished dinner when there came a ring at the street door.
Some one asked for M. Mouillard, the gentleman with the decoration, I
suppose, for Madeleine showed him in, and I could tell by the noise of
his chair that my uncle had risen to receive his visitor.

They sat down and entered into conversation. An indistinct murmur reached
me through the ceiling. Occasionally a clearer sound struck my ear, and I
thought I knew that high, resonant voice. It was no doubt delusion, still
it beset me there in the silence of the library, haunting my thoughts as
they wandered restlessly in search of occupation. I tried to recollect
all the men with fluty voices that I had ever met in Bourges: a
corn-factor from the Place St. Jean; Rollet, the sacristan; a fat
manufacturer, who used to get my uncle to draw up petitions for him
claiming relief from taxation. I hunted feverishly in my memory as the
light died away from the windows, and the towers of St. Stephen's
gradually lost the glowing aureole conferred on them by the setting sun.

After about an hour the conversation grew heated.

My uncle coughed, the flute became shrill. I caught these fragments of
their dialogue.

"No, Monsieur!"

"Yes, Monsieur!"

"But the law?"

"Is as I tell you."

"But this is tyranny!"

"Then our business is at an end."

Apparently it was not, though; for the conversation gradually sank down
the scale to a monotonous murmur. A second hour passed, and yet a third.
What could this interminable visit portend?

It was near eleven o'clock. A ray from the rising moon shone between the
trees in the garden. A big black cat crept across the lawn, shaking its
wet paws. In the darkness it looked like a tiger. In my mind's eye I saw
Madeleine sitting with her eyes fixed on her dead hearth, telling her
beads, her thoughts running with mine: "It is years since Monsieur
Mouillard was up at such an hour." Still she waited, for never had any
hand but hers shot the bolt of the street door; the house would not be
shut if shut by any other than herself.

At last the dining-room door opened. "Let me show you a light; take care
of the stairs."

Then followed the "Good-nights" of two weary voices, the squeaking of the
big key turning in the lock, a light footstep dying away in the d