"But I have closed to myself forever that world where I might find my equals and my fellows. I can enter only through the secret doors of intrigue, and, if I wish to appear there in broad daylight, I can do it only on condition of being followed by the mystery of my past, that is to say, by a sentence of death always hanging over my head. Shall I leave the country? It is the only country where the trade of bandit is more perilous than dishonorable. Anywhere else I shall be asked for proof that I have always lived in legitimate society; and if I cannot furnish it I shall be classed with the most degraded creatures who wallow in the sloughs of their pretended civilization! "O Mila! how completely you have filled with grief and dismay this heart upon which you have shed a ray of your sunlight!" XL DECEPTION Thus did that man, so ill-placed in life if we compare his intellectual powers with his social position, torture himself with vain reflections. Mental culture, which was his greatest enjoyment, was also his torment. Having read everything that fell into his hands, without method and without selection, and allowing himself to be impressed by everything in turn, he was as learned in evil as in good, and he was insensibly drawing near that scepticism which no longer believes absolutely in either good or evil. He returned to his house to take certain precautions with respect to Abbé Ninfo, so that, if the unexpected should happen, and his domicile be invaded, there should be no traces of violence. He put the narcotized wine out of sight, and filled the decanter with unadulterated wine, in order that he might safely pretend to experiment upon himself at need. He placed the abbé on a couch, extinguished the lamp, and swept up the ashes of the papers Mila had destroyed. No one ever entered his house in his absence. He had no regular servants, and the spotless neatness which he himself maintained did not cost him much trouble, for he occupied only a few rooms, and even those few he did not enter every day. He worked in his garden, in his leisure moments, to keep himself in condition, and to be consistent with his assumed rôle of peasant. He had himself applied to all the issues of his abode a simple but substantial system of fastening, calculated to resist for a long time any attempt to force an entrance. Finally, he released two enormous and savage mountain dogs, fierce beasts who knew nobody but him, and who would infallibly have strangled the prisoner if he had tried to escape.