conduces to
slumber. I verily believe you never sleep. To-morrow I shall hear that
the good father's confessions terminated with the breakfast hour. Ah! I
shall miss the black coffee--but I have a flask of my own, though its
contents have nothing to do with the centuries."

Then Delormais turned to us, his eyes full of kindly solicitude.

"Are you equal to a vigil? Is it not too bad, after your hard day's
work--pleasure is often labour--to ask you to give an old man an hour or
two from your well-earned slumbers? Do you not also find the air of
Gerona conducive to sleep? I warn you that at the first sign of drooping
eyelid I dismiss the assembly."

"A challenge! Never was sleep less desired. Though the breakfast hour
finds us here, as H. C. foretells, there shall be no want of attention.
But do not forget the black coffee!"

We heard H. C.'s receding echoes through the labyrinthine passages; the
closing of a door; then a voice gently elevated in song, utterly
oblivious of small hours and unconscious neighbours. "Drink to me only
with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine," it warbled; "leave but a
kiss within the cup, and I'll ne'er ask for wine."

Here recollection seemed to come to the voice; an open window looking on
to a passage was softly closed, and all was silent. H. C. was evidently
thinking of the charming face he had seen at the opera, all the more
lovely and modest contrasted with the shameless old woman at its side.

Delormais led the way through the corridors. His light threw weird
shadows around. A distant clock struck the hour of one. The hush in the
house was ghostly. The very walls seemed pregnant with the secrets of
the past. They had listened to mighty dramas political and domestic;
heard love-vows made only to be broken; absorbed the laughter of joy and
the tears of sorrow. All this they now appeared to be giving out as we
went between them, treading quietly on marble pavement sacred to the
memory of the dead.

We entered Delormais' sitting-room. At once he turned up two lamps, and
lighting some half-dozen candles produced an illumination.

"One of my weaknesses," he said. "I love to take night walks and lose
myself in thought under the dark starlit skies, but that is quite
another thing. In my room I must have brilliancy."

"When you are a bishop you will so indulge this weakness that your
palace will be called a Shining Light, its lord a Beacon of the Church."

A peculiar smile passed