"You shall sit here, Mr. Arden," said the baron, placing a chair for him. "You shall be comfortable. I grow in confidence with you. I feel inwardly an intuition when I speak wis a man of honour; my demon, as it were, whispers 'Trust him, honour him, make much of him.' Will you take a pipe, or a mug of beer?" This abrupt invitation Mr. Arden civilly declined. "Well, I shall have my pipe and beer. See, there is ze barrel--not far to go." He raised the candle, and David Arden saw for the first time the outline of a veritable beer-barrel in the corner, on tressels, such as might have regaled a party of boors in the clear shadow of a Teniers. "There is the comely beer-cask, not often seen in Paris, in the corner of our boudoir, resting against the only remaining rags of the sky-blue and gold silk--it is rotten now--with which the room was hung, and a gilded cornice--it is black now--over its head; and now, instead of beautiful women and graceful youths, in gold lace and cut velvets and perfumed powder, there are but one rheumatic and crooked old woman, and one old Prussian doctor, in his shirt-sleeves, ha! ha! _mutat terra vices!_ Come, we shall look at these again, and you shall hear more." He placed the two masks upon the chimney-piece, leaning against the wall. "And we will illuminate them," says he; and he takes, one after the other, half a dozen pieces of wax candle, and dripping the melting wax on the chimney-piece, he sticks each candle in turn in a little pool of its own wax. "I spare nothing, you see, to make all plain. Those two faces present a marked contrast. Do you, Mr. Arden, know anything, ever so little, of the fate of Yelland Mace?" "Nothing. Is he living?" "Suppose he is dead, what then?" "In that case, of course, I take my leave of the inquiry, and of you, asking you simply one question, whether there was any correspondence between Yelland Mace and Walter Longcluse?" "A very intimate correspondence," said the baron. "Of what nature?" "Ha! They have been combined in business, in pleasures, in crimes," said the baron. "Look at them. Can you believe it? So dissimilar! They are opposites in form and character, as if fashioned in expression and in feature each to contradict the other; yet so united!" "And in crime, you say?" "Ay, in crime--in all things." "Is Yelland Mace still living?" urged David Arden. "Those features, in life, you will never behold, Sir." "He is dead. You said that you took that mask from among the dead. _Is_ he dead?" "No, Sir; not actually dead, but under a strange condition. Bah; Don't you see I have a secret? Do you prize very highly learning where he is?" "Very highly, provided he may be secured and brought to trial; and you, Baron, must arrange to give your testimony to prove his identity."