I had forgotten the deposition of a servant who had been the last to see M. Alphonse alive. He saw him go upstairs to his wife, and he had called the man and asked him in an anxious manner if he knew where I was. Then M. Alphonse heaved a sigh, and stood for a moment in silence, adding afterwards-- "Well, the devil must have carried him off too!" I asked this man if M. Alphonse had his diamond ring on when he spoke to him. The servant hesitated before he replied; then he said that he thought not, that at all events it had not attracted his attention. "If he had worn that ring," he added, correcting himself, "I should certainly have noticed it, because I believed that he had given it to Madam Alphonse." Whilst I interrogated this man I felt a little of the superstitious terror that Madam Alphonse's deposition had spread throughout the house. The magistrate looked at me and smiled, and I refrained from pressing my questions any further. A few hours after the funeral of M. Alphonse I prepared to leave Ille. M. de Peyrehorade's carriage was to take me to Perpignan. In spite of his state of feebleness the poor old man would accompany me to the gate of his grounds. He walked to it in silence, hardly able to drag himself along even with the help of my arm. Just as we were parting I cast a last glance at the Venus. I could see plainly that my host, although he did not share the terrors and hatred that his family felt for it, would like to get rid of the object that would ever afterwards remind him of a frightful disaster. I resolved to try and persuade him to put it in a museum. I was hesitating to begin the subject when M. de Peyrehorade mechanically turned his head in the direction in which he saw me looking so attentively. He saw the statue, and immediately burst into tears. I embraced him, and, without venturing to say a single word, I stepped into the carriage. Since my departure I have never learnt that anything was discovered to throw light on this mysterious catastrophe. M. de Peyrehorade died some months after his son. He bequeathed me his manuscripts in his will, which some day I may publish. But I have not been able to find the treatise relating to the inscriptions on the Venus. * * * * * P.S.--My friend M. de P. has just written to me from Perpignan to tell me that the statue no longer exists. After her husband's death, the first thing Madam de Peyrehorade did was to have it melted down and made into a bell, and in this fresh form it is used in the church at Ille. But, adds M. de P., it would seem that an evil fate pursues those who possess that piece of bronze. Since that bell began to ring in Ille the vines have twice been frost-bitten. 1837. [1] "But you will pay for it." LOKIS FROM THE MS. OF PROFESSOR WITTEMBACH I