happened, for Madam's window was wide open. I recollected with horror that heavy body falling past my window. We knocked loudly; still no answer. At length the valet brought an iron bar, and we forced the door.... No! courage fails me to describe the scene which presented itself to our eyes. The young Countess was stretched dead on her bed, her face horribly torn, her throat cut open and covered with blood. The Count had disappeared, and no one has ever heard news of him since. The doctor examined the young girl's ghastly wound. "It was not a steel blade," he exclaimed, "which did this wound.... It was a bite...." * * * * * The doctor closed his book, and looked thoughtfully into the fire. "And is that the end of the story?" asked Adelaide. "The end," replied the Professor in a melancholy voice. "But," she continued, "why have you called it '_Lokis_'? Not a single person in it is so called." "It is not the name of a man," said the Professor. "Come, Théodore, do you understand what '_Lokis_' means?" "Not in the very least." "If you were thoroughly steeped in the law of transformation from the Sanskrit into Lithuanian, you would have recognised in _lokis_ the Sanskrit _arkcha_, or _rikscha_. The Lithuanians call _lokis_ that animal which the Greeks called [Greek: arktos], the Latins _ursus_, and the Germans _bär_. "Now you will understand my motto: "Miszka su Lokiu, Abu du tokiu." "You remember that in the romance of _Renard_ the bear is called _damp Brun_. The Slavs called it Michel, which becomes Miszka in Lithuanian, and the surname nearly always replaces the generic name _lokis_. In the same way the French have forgotten their new Latin word _goupil_, or _gorpil_, and have substituted _renard_. I could quote you endless other instances...." But Adelaide observed that it was late, and we ought to go to bed. THE BLUE CHAMBER _To Madame de la Rhune_ A young man was walking up and down the waiting-room of a railway station, in an agitated condition. He wore blue spectacles, and, although he had not a cold, he used his pocket-handkerchief incessantly. He held a little black bag in his left hand which, as I learnt later, contained a silk dressing-gown and a pair of Turkish pantaloons.