"M. l'Abbe," said the notary, impatiently, "I sent to beg your company that I might confer with you on a matter of importance, and not to take up your time in listening to the absurd and exaggerated eulogiums of my friend!" "You know, Jacques," said Polidori, fixing a piercing glance of fearful meaning on the notary, "that it is useless attempting to escape from me, and that you must hear all I have got to say." The person so addressed cast down his eyes, and durst not reply. Polidori continued: "You may probably have remarked, M. l'Abbe, that the first symptoms of our friend's illness manifested themselves in a sort of nervous attack, which followed the abominable scandal raised by the affair of Louise Morel, while in his service." A sort of aguish shivering ran over the notary. "Is it possible that you, sir, are acquainted with that unfortunate girl's story?" inquired the priest, greatly astonished. "I imagined you had only been in Paris a few days." "And you were correctly informed; but my good friend Jacques told me all about it, as a man would relate such a circumstance to his friend and physician, since he attributed the nervous shock under which he is now labouring to the excessive indignation awakened in his mind by the discovery of his servant's crime. But that is not all. My poor friend's sympathies have been still more painfully awakened by a fresh blow, which, as you perceive, has had a very serious effect on his health. An old and faithful servant, attached to him by many years of well-requited service--" "You allude to the untimely end of Madame Seraphin, I presume," said the cure, interrupting Polidori. "I heard of the melancholy affair; she was drowned, I believe, from some carelessness or imprudence manifested by her while making one in a party of pleasure. I can quite understand the distress such a circumstance must have occasioned M. Ferrand, whose kind heart would be unable to forget that she who was thus snatched from life had, for ten long years, been his faithful, zealous domestic; far from blaming such regrets, I think them but natural, and reflecting as much honour on the survivor as the deceased." "M. l'Abbe," said the notary, "let me beseech of you to cease commending my virtues; you confuse--you make me really uncomfortable." "And who, then, shall speak of them as they deserve?" asked Polidori, with feigned affection. "Will you? Oh, no! But, M. l'Abbe, you shall have a fresh opportunity of praising him as he deserves. Listen! You are, perhaps, ignorant that Jacques took a third servant, to replace Louise Morel and Madame Seraphin? If you are not aware of that fact, you have still to learn all his goodness towards poor Cecily; for that was the name of the new domestic, M. l'Abbe." Involuntarily the notary sprung from his seat, and with eyes glaring with rage and madness, even in spite of the glasses he wore, he cried, while a deep, fiery glow overspread his before livid countenance: