practice of the sacred rite to which he retires every day as soon
as dinner is over, and from which he seldom emerges again till it
is time to retire for the night. Cleon alone is privileged to enter
this room. I have never yet been inside it. Equally forbidden
ground is M. Platzoff's bedroom, and a small study beyond, all _en
suite_.

"Those who keep servants keep spies under their roof. It has been
part of my purpose to make myself agreeable to the older domestics
at Bon Repos, and from them I have picked up several little facts
which all Mr. Cleon's shrewdness has not been able entirely to
conceal. In this way I have learned that M. Platzoff is a confirmed
opium-smoker. That once, or sometimes twice, a week he shuts
himself up in his room and smokes himself into a sort of trance, in
which he remains unconscious for hours. That at such times Cleon
has to look after him as though he were a child; and that it
depends entirely on the mulatto as to whether he ever emerges from
his state of coma, or stops in it till he dies. The accuracy of
this latter statement, however, I must beg leave to doubt.

"Further gossip has informed me, whether truly or falsely I am not
in a position to judge, that M. Platzoff is a refugee from his own
country. That were he to set foot on the soil of Russia, a
life-long banishment to Siberia would be the mildest fate that he
could expect; and that neither in France nor in Austria would he be
safe from arrest. The people who come as guests to Bon Repos are,
so I am informed, in nearly every instance foreigners, and, as a
natural consequence, they are all set down by the servants' gossip
as red-hot republicans, thirsting for the blood of kings and
aristocrats, and willing to put a firebrand under every throne in
Europe. In fact, there cannot be a popular outbreak against bad
government in any part of Europe without M. Platzoff and his
friends being credited with having at least a finger in the pie.

"All these statements and suppositions you will of course accept
_cum grano salis_. They may have their value as serving to give you
a rude and exaggerated idea as to what manner of man is the owner
of Bon Repos; and it is quite possible that some elements of truth
may be hidden in them. To me, M. Platzoff seems nothing more