"Faith!" said Marmagne with a simper, "you're a sorcerer, my dear fellow; yes, I come from the Louvre, where the king said some very gracious things to me, and where I should still he if a certain fascinating little countess had not signified to me that she preferred a solitude _à deux_ to all that crush. But whence come you?" "Whence come I?" rejoined Aubry, with a hearty laugh. "Faith! you remind me! Poor Benvenuto! On my word, he doesn't deserve it!" "Pray what has happened to our dear friend?" "In the first place, you must know that I come from the Grand-Nesle, where I have passed two hours clinging to the branch of a tree like any parrot." "The devil! that was no very comfortable position!" "Never mind, never mind! I don't regret the cramp I got there, for I saw things, my friend, I saw things--Why, simply in thinking of them I suffocate with laughter." As he spoke Jacques Aubry did laugh, so joyously and frankly that, although Marmagne had as yet no idea what he was laughing at, he could not forbear joining in the chorus. But his ignorance of the cause of the student's amusement naturally made him the first to cease. "Now, my young friend, that I have been drawn on by your hilarity to laugh in confidence," said Marmagne, "may I not know what wonderful things they were to amuse you so? You know that I am one of Benvenuto's faithful friends, although I have never met you at his house, as my occupation leaves me very little time to devote to society, and that little I prefer to devote to my mistresses rather than my friends, I confess. But it is none the less true that whatever affects him affects me. Dear Benvenuto! Tell me what is going on at the Grand-Nesle in his absence? That interests me more than I can explain to you." "What is going on?" said Aubry. "No, no, that's a secret." "A secret to me!" said Marmagne. "A secret to me, who love Benvenuto so dearly, and who this very evening outdid King François I. in eulogizing him! Ah! that is too bad," added the viscount, with an injured expression. "If I were only sure that you would mention it to nobody, my dear--What the devil is your name, my dear friend?--I would tell you about it, for I confess that I am as anxious to tell my story as King Midas's reeds were to tell theirs." "Tell it then, tell it," said Marmagne. "You won't repeat it to anybody?" "To nobody, I swear!" "On your word of honor?" "On the faith of a nobleman." "Fancy then--But, in the first place, my dear friend, you know the story of the monk's ghost, don't you?" "Yes, I've heard of it. A phantom that is said to haunt the Grand-Nesle." "Just so. Well, well! if you know that, I can tell you the rest. Fancy that Dame Perrine--" "Colombe's governess?"