people. He cannot pay something?”

“He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead.”

“Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?”

“Alas, no Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap

of poor grass.”

“Well?”

“Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass.”

“Again, well?”

She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one

of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted

hands together with wild energy, and laid one of them on the

carriage-doortenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a human

breast, and could be expected to feel the appealing touch.

“Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My

husband died of want; so many die of want; so many more will die

of want.”

“Again, well? Can I feed them?”

“Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don’t ask it. My

petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband’s

name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise,

the place will be quickly forgotten, it will never be found when I

am dead of the same malady. I shall be laid under some other heap

of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many, they increase so

fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur! Monseigneur!”

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The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had

broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she

was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the

Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance that

remained between him and his chateau.

The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and

rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the rusty, ragged, and toilworn

group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of

roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing,

still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could

bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off

one by one, and lights twinkled in little casements; which lights, as

the casements darkened, and more stars came out, seemed to have

shot up into the sky instead of having been extinguished.

The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many

overhanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time;

and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his

carriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau was opened to

him.

“Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from

England?”

“Monseigneur, not yet.”

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Chapter XV

THE GORGON’S HEAD