It had been a hot, oppressive day, but when, a half-hour later, Guida hastened back from a fruitless visit to the house of the Dean, who was absent in England, a vast black cloud had drawn up from the south-east, dropping a curtain of darkness upon the town. As she neared the doorway of the cottage, a few heavy drops began to fall, and, in spite of her bitter trouble, she quickened her footsteps, fearing that her grandfather had come back, to find the house empty and no light or supper ready. M. de Mauprat had preceded her by not more than five minutes. His footsteps across the Place du Vier Prison had been unsteady, his head bowed, though more than once he raised it with a sort of effort, as it were in indignation or defiance. He muttered to himself as he opened the door, and he paused in the hall-way as though hesitating to go forward. After a moment he made a piteous gesture of his hand towards the kitchen, and whispered to himself in a kind of reassurance. Then he entered the room and stood still. All was dark save for the glimmer of the fire. "Guida! Guida!" he said in a shaking, muffled voice. There was no answer. He put by his hat and stick in the corner, and felt his way to the great chair-he seemed to have lost his sight. Finding the familiar, worn arm of the chair, he seated himself with a heavy sigh. His lips moved, and he shook his head now and then, as though in protest against some unspoken thought. Presently he brought his clinched hand down heavily on the table, and said aloud: "They lie--they lie! The Connetable lies! Their tongues shall be cut out. . . . Ah, my little, little child! . . . The Connetable dared--he dared--to tell me this evil gossip--of the little one--of my Guida!" He laughed contemptuously, but it was a crackling, dry laugh, painful in its cheerlessness. He drew his snuff-box from his pocket, opened it, and slowly taking a pinch, raised it towards his nose, but the hand paused half-way, as though a new thought arrested it. In the pause there came the sound of the front door opening, and then footsteps in the hall. The pinch of snuff fell from the fingers of the old man on to the white stuff of his short-clothes, but as Guida entered the room and stood still a moment, he did not stir in his seat. The thundercloud had come still lower and the room was dark, the coals in the fireplace being now covered with grey ashes. "Grandpethe! Grandpethe!" Guida said.