atalie having a younger
sister at school there, and also because she had a particular desire to
see the abbey.

The wedding was to take place on a Thursday; and on the Wednesday
evening, having spent some hours most agreeably with Natalie, Antoine de
Chaulieu returned to spend his last night in his bachelor apartments. His
wardrobe and other small possessions had already been packed up and sent
to his future home; and there was nothing left in his room now but his
new wedding suit, which he inspected with considerable satisfaction
before he undressed and lay down to sleep. Sleep, however, was somewhat
slow to visit him; and the clock had struck one before he closed his
eyes. When he opened them again, it was broad daylight; and his first
thought was, had he overslept himself? He sat up in bed to look at the
clock, which was exactly opposite; and as he did so, in the large mirror
over the fireplace he perceived a figure standing behind him. As the
dilated eyes met his own, he saw it was the face of Jacques Rollet.
Overcome with horror, he sank back on his pillow, and it was some minutes
before he ventured to look again in that direction; when he did so, the
figure had disappeared.

The sudden revulsion of feeling such a vision was calculated to occasion
in a man elate with joy, may be conceived. For some time after the death
of his former foe, he had been visited by not unfrequent twinges of
conscience; but of late, borne along by success, and the hurry of
Parisian life, these unpleasant remembrances had grown rarer, till at
length they had faded away altogether. Nothing had been further from his
thoughts than Jacques Rollet, when he closed his eyes on the preceding
night, nor when he opened them to that sun which was to shine on what he
expected to be the happiest day of his life. Where were the high-strung
nerves now? the elastic frame? the bounding heart?

Heavily and slowly he arose from his bed, for it was time to do so; and
with a trembling hand and quivering knees, he went through the processes
of the toilet, gashing his cheek with the razor, and spilling the water
over his well-polished boots. When he was dressed, scarcely venturing to
cast a glance in the mirror as he passed it, he quitted the room, and
descended the stairs, taking the key of the door with him for the purpose
of leaving it with the porter: the man, however, being absent, he laid it
on the table in his lodge, and with a relaxed and languid step