“How could you bear it? Would you not cry out, Among those eyes grown blind to you, those ears That hear no more your voice you hear the same, God! what is left but hell for company, But hell, hell, hell—until the name so breathed Whirled with hot wind and sucked you down in fire.” —D. G. ROSSETTI, _A Last Confession_. Madame Veuve Geffroi possessed to a singular degree the faculty of knowing her own mind, and also, commonly, that of expressing with accuracy and point the resolutions at which, from time to time, she arrived by the assistance of this quality. When, therefore, she took her way between seven and eight that evening to her hay-loft, with the intent of presenting an ultimatum to its temporary inhabitants, the clearness of her mental vision was momentarily obscured by the sight of one of them seated on her chopping-log in the shed, near the foot of the ladder, with his head buried in his hands. In the failing light this figure startled and almost disconcerted her, and she gave vent to a little exclamation. The Marquis raised a ghastly face and looked at her dizzily. “Bon Dieu! what is the matter with you?” ejaculated Madame Geffroi. Gilbert rose mechanically. “Are you ill too?” queried his visitor, peering at him. The Marquis shook his head, murmuring he knew not what, and turned away to escape her eyes. Madame Geffroi scanned what she could see of him sceptically; then she shrugged her shoulders. “Very well then, listen to me. How is the other up there?” “I don’t know,” said Gilbert rather wildly. “I have been down here . . . my God . . . how long!” “You don’t know!” repeated Madame Geffroi with some scorn. “But he must be either better or worse. Which is it?” “Worse, then,” replied Château-Foix almost inaudibly. “He has more fever?” pursued the inquisitrix. “He is perhaps light-headed—he talks nonsense?” “That is it,” said the Marquis, and broke—to his own infinite surprise—into unmirthful laughter. The note of hysteria did not escape his shrewd companion, though she assigned it to a wrong cause. “Come,” she said, more kindly, patting him on the arm; “you have a good heart, you suffer because your friend is ill—or is he your brother? Never mind, but listen to me! I have come to tell you something that will ease your anxiety. I have made up my mind to take your brother into my house until he is better. What have you to say to that, my young man?” “I—but how can you?” stammered the Marquis. The twilight interview with this insistent female was like a nightmare, from which he more and more earnestly desired to escape, that he might be alone.