"There occurs to my remembrance," Theodore said, "an occasion when an accursed crime of that description chanced to be brought vividly before my own eyes, filling me with the profoundest pain and sorrow. When I was living in W---- I went to see a certain charming country seat, L----, which you know. It has been justly said of it that it seems to float like some stately swan mirrored on the beautiful lake which lies at its feet. I had heard, before, that there were dark rumours to the effect that the unfortunate possessor of it, who had died but a short time before, had carried on magical practices, with the help of an old woman; and that the aged keeper of the chateau could tell a good deal about this business, could one gain his confidence. As soon as I saw this man he struck me as a very remarkable person. Imagine to yourselves a hoary-headed old man with imprints of the profoundest terror in his face, dressed poorly, like a peasant, but indicating, by his manner, unusual cultivation. Remark that this man, whom you would have taken for an ordinary labourer at the first glance, would talk to you--if you did not happen to understand the patois of the district--in the purest French, or in equally good Italian, just as you chose. I managed to interest and to animate him by touching, as we wandered through the great halls, on the troubles which his late master had had to go through, and by showing that I was, to some extent, acquainted with the subject, and with what had happened in those bygone days. He explained the deeper meaning of many of the paintings and adornments (which, to the uninitiated, seemed mere unmeaning prettinesses), and grew more and more frank and confidential. At last he opened a small closet, floored with slabs of white marble, in which the only piece of furniture was a cauldron of brass. The walls seemed to have been stripped of their former adornments. I knew, I felt, that I was in the place where the former master of the house, blinded and befooled by his lust for sensuous enjoyment, had descended to diabolical practices. When I dropped a word or two hinting at this subject, the old man raised his eyes to heaven with an expression of the bitterest melancholy, and said, with a deep sigh, 'Ah! Holy Virgin! hast thou forgiven him?' He then silently pointed to a large marble slab embedded in the middle of the flooring. I looked at this slab with much closeness of observation, and became aware that there were reddish veins meandering about through the stone. And, as I fixed my attention upon them more and more closely, heaven aid me! the features of a human face grew more and more distinctly traceable and visible, just as when, on looking at a distorted picture through a lens specially constructed, all its lines and effects then, and not till then, grow clear and sharp.