"Couldn't do it better myself. But why in the night?" "Ah--that is a long story." Herbert clapped his hands to command attention. "Everybody take their seats. Monsieur Lemois is going to tell us of how he burglarized a church and made off with a Madonna." Louis walked solemnly toward the door, his hand over his heart. "You must excuse me, Herbert, if I leave the room before Lemois begins," he said, turning and facing the group, "for I should certainly interrupt his recital. This whole discussion is so repulsive to me, and so far below my own high standard of what is right and wrong, that my morals are in danger of being undermined. And I----" "Dry up, Louis!" growled Brierley. "Go on, Lemois." "No, I mean what I say," protested Louis. "Only a few nights ago, and at this very table, a most worthy woman, descendant of one of the oldest families in France, and our guest, confessed to wilful perjury, and now a former mayor of this village admits that he robbed a church. I have not been brought up this way, and if----" "Tie him to a chair, High-Muck!" cried Herbert. "No, his hands are up! All right, go on, Lemois." "Our landlord drew nearer to the table, sat down, and, with a humorous nod toward Louis, began: "You must all remember I was an impressionable young fellow at the time, full of daredevil, romantic ideas, and, like most young fellows, saw only the end in view without caring a sou about the means by which I reached it. "I found the bas-relief, as I have told you, in a small chapel outside of Ravenna--one of those deep-toned interiors lighted by dust-begrimed windows, the roof supported by rows of marble columns. The altar, which was low and of simple design, was placed at the top of a wide flight of three rose-marble steps over which swung a huge brass lamp burning a ruby light. With the exception of an old woman asleep on her knees before a figure of the Virgin, I was the only person in the building. I had already seen dozens of such interiors, all more or less alike, and after walking around it once or twice was about to leave by a side door protected by a heavy clay-soiled red curtain when my eye fell on the original of the caste above you, the figures and surrounding panel being built into the masonry of the altar, a position it had occupied, no doubt, since the days of Michael Angelo.