He spoke the truth: Samuel Brohl was not dead, and life was of value to him, since he had met Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz in the cathedral in Chur. It was Samuel Brohl who had come to Cormeilles, and who was seated, at this moment, in the midst of a grove of oaks. Perhaps the lark that he had heard singing a quarter of an hour before had recognised him, for it had ceased singing. The peacock continued its screaming, and its doleful cries sounded like a warning. Yes, the man seated among the heather, employed in narrating his own history to himself, was indeed Samuel Brohl, and the proof of this was that he had laughed, while Count Abel Larinski never laughed; moreover, for four years the latter had been out of the world. The second reason is, perhaps, the better. He whom, with or without his consent, we shall call henceforth Samuel Brohl, reproached himself for this access of levity, as he would have reproached himself for a false note that had escaped him in executing a Mozart sonata. He resumed his grave, dignified air, in order to salute with a wave of his hand the phantom that had just appeared before him. It was the same that he had summoned one evening at the Hotel Steinbock, and treated there as an addle-brain, as a visionary, and even as an imbecile; but this time he gave him a more indulgent and gracious reception. He bore him no ill-will, he wished him well, he was under essential obligations to him, and Samuel Brohl was no ingrate. “Ah! well, my poor friend, I am here,” he said, in that mute language that phantoms understand. “I have taken your place, and almost your form; I play your part in the great fair of this world, and, although your noble body has rested for four years, six feet underground, thanks to me you still live. I always have had a most sincere admiration for you. I considered you a phenomenon, a prodigy. You were courageous, devoted, generosity itself; you esteemed honour above all the gold deposits in California; you detested all coarse thoughts and doubtful actions; your mother had nourished you in all sublime follies. You were a true chevalier, a true Pole, the last Don Quixote in this age of sceptics, plunderers, and interlopers. Blessed be the chance that made us acquainted! You lived retired, solitary, unknown, in a miserable hovel just outside of Bucharest. So goes the world! You were in hiding--you who had nothing to hide from either God or man--you who deserved a crown. Alas! the Russian Government had the poor taste not to appreciate your exploits, and you feared that it would claim and obtain your extradition. At our first meeting I pleased you, and you took me into your friendship; I spoke Polish, and you loved music. I became your intimate friend, your sole companion, your confidant. You must grant that you owe to me the last happy moments of your short existence. I soon knew your origin, the history of your youth, of your enterprises, and of your misfortunes. You initiated me into the secret of the great