scovered, this window was
exactly in the middle of the chamber where his commission was to be
executed.

The Count's attention had been excited by his singular reception, and he
carefully observed every thing. He noticed a small stove-pipe leading
into a chimney. "Is the house inhabited?" he inquired. "No," replied the
gardener, gruffly, as he opened a door upon a side stairway, which he
mounted before the Count, opening at each story the little apertures for
light in the queer old fashioned front of the chateau.

In the third story, the gardener stopped, and pointing to a door, said,
"There." And without adding a word he turned about and went down stairs.
The Count opened the door and found himself in a dark ante-chamber. The
light from the stairway was sufficient, however, for him to distinguish
a second door, which he opened, and through which he went into the
apartment lighted from the window whence the blind had fallen. The
appearance of the room was cold, bare, and deserted. On the floor stood
a vacant bird-cage. The writing-desk indicated to the Count by his
friend, stood directly opposite the window. Without further delay, the
Count went directly up to the desk and opened it.

As he turned the key, the lock creaked very loudly, but at the same
moment he was aware of another and a different sound--that of a door
opening. The Count turns, and in the centre of an obscure side-room,
whose door was open, he sees a white figure, with its arms stretched
toward him.

"Count!" exclaims a low but most expressive voice, "you come to rob me
of Theodore's letters? Why?"

(Theodore is not the name of the proprietor of the chateau, at whose
request the Count had come.)

"Madame!" exclaims M. de R., "who are you?"

"Do you not know me, much as I must be altered?"

"The Marchioness!" exclaims the Count, astounded and even terrified.

"Yes, it is me. We were friends once, and now you come to add terribly
to my sufferings! Who sends you? My husband? What does he yet desire? In
mercy leave me the letters!"

While she said this, the figure made signs to the Count to come nearer.
He obeyed, forcing from his mind every suggestion that the apparition
was supernatural, and finally convinced that the Marchioness stood
before him living, under some strange mystery. He followed her into the
second room.

She was dressed in a robe, or more properly, a shroud of a gray color.
Her beautiful hair, which had for years been the env