Not another thing do I remember. The facts are simply these: I faced Bellenger; no blows passed; my mind flashed blank with the partial return of that old eclipse which has fallen upon me after strong excitement, in more than one critical moment. The hiatus seems brief when I awake though it may have lasted hours. I know the eclipse has been upon me, like the wing-shadow of eternity; but I have scarcely let go of time. I could not prove that Bellenger dragged me to the parapet and threw me into the river. If I had known it I should have laughed at his doing so, for I could swim like a fish, through or under water, and sit on the lake bottom holding my breath until Skenedonk had been known to dive for me. When next I sensed anything at all it was a feeling of cold. I thought I was lying in one of the shallow runlets that come into Lake George, and the pebbles were an uneasy bed, chilling my shoulders. I was too stiff to move, or even turn my head to lift out of water the ear on which it rested. But I could unclose my eyelids, and this is what I saw:--a man naked to his waist, half reclining against a leaning slab of marble, down which a layer of water constantly moved. His legs were clothed, and his other garments lay across them. His face had sagged in my direction. There was a deep slash across his forehead, and he showed his teeth and his glassy eyes at the joke. Beyond this silent figure was a woman as silent. The ridge of his body could not hide the long hair spread upon her breast. I considered the company and the moisture into which I had fallen with unspeakable amazement. We were in a low and wide stone chamber with a groined ceiling, supported by stone pillars. A row of lamps was arranged above us, so that no trait or feature might escape a beholder. That we were put there for show entered my mind slowly and brought indignation. To be so helpless and so exposed was an outrage against which I struggled in nightmare impotence; for I was bare to my hips also, and I knew not what other marks I carried beside those which had scarred me all my conscious life. Now in the distance, and echoing, feet descended stairs. I knew that people were coming to look at us, and I could not move a muscle in resentment. I heard their voices, fringed with echoes, before either speaker came within my vision. "This is the mortuary chapel of the Hotel Dieu?" "Yes, monsieur the marquis, this is the mortuary chapel." "Um! Cheerful place!" "Much more cheerful than the bottom of the river, monsieur the marquis." "No doubt. Never empty, eh?" "I have been a servant of the Hotel Dieu fourteen years, monsieur the marquis, and have not yet seen all the marble slabs vacant." "You receive the bodies of the drowned?" "And place them where they may be seen and claimed." "How long do you keep them?" "That depends. Sometimes their friends seek them at once. We have kept a body three months in the winter season, though he turned very green."