M. de Vidoche, who may have had some key in his own breast which unlocked the full meaning of the other's words, started and looked across at him. Whatever he read in the pale, sombre countenance which the removal of the candle fully revealed to him, and in which the eyes, burning vividly, seemed alone alive, he shuddered. He made no reply. His look dropped. Even a little of his high colour left his checks. He went on with his meal in silence. The four tall candles still burned dully on the table. But to M. de Vidoche they seemed on a sudden to be the candles that burn by the side of a corpse. In a flash he saw a room hung with black, a bed, and a silent covered form on it--a form with wan, fair hair--a woman's. And then he saw other things. Clearly, the astrologer was no ordinary man. He seemed to take no notice, however, of the effect his words had produced. Indeed, he no longer urged his attentions on M. de Vidoche. He turned politely to madame, and made some commonplace observation on the roads. She answered it--inattentively. "You are looking at my boy," he continued; for Jehan was waiting inside the door, watching with a frightened, fascinated gaze his master's every act and movement. "I do not wonder that he attracts the ladies' eyes." "He is a handsome child," she answered, smiling faintly. "Yes, he is good-looking," the man in black rejoined. "There is one thing which men of science sell that he will never need." "What is that?" she asked curiously, looking at the astrologer for the first time with attention. "A love-philtre," he answered courteously. "His looks, like madame's, will always supply its place." She coloured, smiling a little sadly. "Are there such things?" she said. "Is it true?--I mean, I always thought that they were a child's tale." "No more than poisons and antidotes, madame," he answered earnestly, "the preservative power of salt, or the destructive power of gunpowder. You take the Queen's herb, you sneeze; the drug of Paracelsus, you sleep; wine, you see double. Why is the powder of attraction more wonderful than these? Or if you remain unconvinced," he continued more lightly, "look round you, madame. You see young men loving old women, the high-born allying themselves with the vulgar, the ugly enchanting the beautiful. You see a hundred inexplicable matches. Believe me, it is we who make them. I speak without motive," he added, bowing, "for Madame de Vidoche can never have need of other philtre than her eyes." Madame, toying idly with a plate, her regards on the table, sighed. "And yet they say matches are made in heaven," she murmured softly. "It is from heaven--from the stars--we derive our knowledge," he answered, in the same tone.