There was a candle burning on the table, and writing materials. The Visconte de Charrebourg, who had evidently been writing, had fallen forward upon the table--dead. Le Prun touched him, he was quite cold. He raised the tall lank figure as well as he could, so that it leaned back in the chair; a little blood came from the corner of the mouth, the eyes were glazed, but the features wore, even in death, a character of sternness and dignity. He had fallen forward upon the fingers that held the pen, and the hand came stiffly back along with the body, still holding the pen in the attitude in which the chill of death had stiffened them. In this attitude he looked as if he only awaited a phrase or a thought of which he was in search to resume his writing. "Dead--dead--a long time dead! how the devil has all this happened?" And he looked for a moment at the old hound that was sniffing and whimpering in his master's ears, as if he could answer him. Poor Jonquil! he has shared his master's fortune fairly--the better and the worse; for years his humble comrade in the sylvan solitudes of Charrebourg, and here the solitary witness of his parting moment. Who can say with what more than human grief that dumb heart is swelling! He will not outlive his old friend many days--Jonquil is past the age for making new ones. Le Prun glanced at the letter, a few lines of which the dead man had traced when he was thus awfully interrupted. "Sir," it began, "the family of Charrebourg, of which I am the unworthy representative, have been remarkable at all times for a chivalric and honorable spirit. They have maintained their dignity in prosperity by great deeds and princely munificence--in adversity, by encountering grief with patience, and insolence with defiance. Insult has never approached them unexpiated by blood; and I, old as I am, in consequence of what this morning----" here the summons had interrupted him. "Intended for me!" said Le Prun, with an ugly sneer. "Well, he can't now put his daughter on her guard, or inflame her with the magnificent spirit of the beggarly Charrebourgs." And so saying, he surrendered the chamber to the dead Visconte and his canine watcher. XII.--ISOLATION.