of keenness, closeness, and dislike, than was
comportable with its wearer's assumption of
indifference.

"Repression is the only lasting philosophy.
The dark deference of fear and slavery, my
friend," observed the Marquis, "will keep the
dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,"
looking up to it, "shuts out the sky."

That might not be so long as the Marquis
supposed. If a picture of the château as it was
to be a very few years hence, and of fifty like it as
they too were to be a very few years hence, could
have been shown to him that night, he might
have been at a loss to claim his own from the
ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked ruins. As
for the roof he vaunted, he might have found
that shutting out the sky in a new way—to wit,
for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which
its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred
thousand muskets.

"Meanwhile," said the Marquis, "I will
preserve the honour and repose of the family, if
you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall
we terminate our conference for the night?"

"A moment more."

"An hour, if you please."

"Sir," said the nephew, "we have done wrong,
and are reaping the fruits of wrong."

"We have done wrong?" repeated the
Marquis, with an inquiring smile, and delicately
pointing, first to his nephew, then to himself.

"Our family; our honourable family, whose
honour is of so much account to both of us, in
such different ways. Even in my father's time,
we did a world of wrong, injuring every human
creature who came between us and our pleasure,
whatever it was. Why need I speak of my
father's time, when it is equally yours? Can I
separate my father's twin-brother, joint inheritor,
and next successor, from himself?"

"Death has done that," said the Marquis.

"And has left me," answered the nephew,
"bound to a system that is frightful to me,
responsible for it, but powerless in it; seeking to
execute the last request of my dear mother's
lips, and obey the last look of my dear mother's
eyes, which implored me to have mercy and to
redress; and tortured by seeking assistance and
power in vain."

"Seeking them from me, my nephew," said
the Marquis, touching him on the breast with
his forefinger—they were now standing by the
hearth—"you will for ever seek them in vain,
be assured."

Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness
of his face, was cruelly, craftily, and closely
compressed, while he stood looking quietly at his
nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once
again he touched him on the breast, as though
his finger were the fine point of a small sword,
with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him through
the body, and said,

"My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system
under which I have lived."

When he had said it, he took a culminating
pinch of snuff, and put his box in his pocket.

"Better to be a rational creature," he added
then, after ringing a small bell on the table,
"and accept your natural destiny. But you are
lost, Monsieur Charles, I see."

"This property and France are lost to me,"
said the nephew, sadly; "I renounce them."

"Are they both yours to renounce? France
may be, but is the property? It is scarcely
worth mentioning; but, is it yet?"

"I had no intention, in the words I used, to
claim it yet. If it passed to me from you,
tomorrow——"

"Which I have the vanity to hope is not
probable."

"—or twenty years hence——"

"You do me too much honour," said the
Marquis; "still, I prefer that supposition."

"—I would abandon it, and live otherwise and
elsewhere. It is little to relinquish. What is
it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!"

"Hah!" said the Marquis, glancing round the
luxurious room.

"To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen
in its integrity, under the sky and by the
daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste,
mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage,
oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering."

"Hah!" said the Marquis again, in a well-
satisfied manner.

"If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into
some hands better qualified to free it slowly (if
such a thing is possible) from the weight that
drags it down, so that the miserable people who
cannot leave it and who have been long wrung
to the last point of endurance, may, in another
generation, suffer less; but it is not for me.
There is a curse on it, and on all this land."

"And you?" said the uncle. "Forgive my
curiosity;do you, under your new philosophy,
graciously intend to live?"

"I must do, to live, what others of my
countrymen, even with nobility at their backs, may
have to do some day—work."

"In England, for example?"

"Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from,
me in this country. The family name can suffer
from me in no other, for I bear it in no other."

The ringing of the bell had caused the
adjoining bedchamber to be lighted. It now
shone brightly, through the door of communication.
The Marquis looked that way, and listened
for the retreating step of his valet.

"England is very attractive to you, seeing
how indifferently you have prospered there," he
observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew
with a smile.

"I have already said, that for my prospering
there, I am sensible I may be indebted to you,
sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge."

"They say, those boastful English, that it is
the Refuge of many. You know a compatriot
who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?"

"Yes."

"With a daughter?"

"Yes."

"Yes," said the Marquis. "You are fatigued.
Good night!"

As he bent his head in his most courtly