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While he was so occupied his servant threw open the door and announced ceremoniously, "Madame Brett!" Newman roused himself, expectantly, and in a few moments perceived upon his threshold the worthy woman with whom he had conversed to such good purpose on the starlit hill-top of Fleurieres. Mrs. Bread had made for this visit the same toilet as for her former expedition.

At the door of the chateau he waited for some moments, and this gave him a chance to observe that Fleurieres was not "kept up," and to reflect that it was a melancholy place of residence. "It looks," said Newman to himself and I give the comparison for what it is worth "like a Chinese penitentiary."

M. Ledoux had told him that he had reason to know that Valentin's will Bellegarde had a great deal of elegant personal property to dispose of contained a request that he should be buried near his father in the church-yard of Fleurieres, and Newman intended that the state of his own relations with the family should not deprive him of the satisfaction of helping to pay the last earthly honors to the best fellow in the world.

The apothecary from Poitiers kept the marquis along through the day, and we waited for the other doctor from Paris, who, as I told you, had been staying at Fleurieres. They had telegraphed for him early in the morning, and in the evening he arrived. He talked a bit outside with the doctor from Poitiers, and then they came in to see the marquis together. I was with him, and so was Mr. Urbain.

We object to the marriage; and in that way," and M. de Bellegarde gave a small, thin laugh, "she would be more married than ever." "Well, then," said Newman, "where is this place of yours Fleurieres? I know it is near some old city on a hill." "Precisely. Poitiers is on a hill," said Madame de Bellegarde. "I don't know how old it is. We are not afraid to tell you." "It is Poitiers, is it?

You don't know what Mademoiselle was in those days, sir; she was the sweetest young creature in France, and knew as little of what was going on around her as the lamb does of the butcher. I used to nurse the marquis, and I was always in his room. It was here at Fleurieres, in the autumn. We had a doctor from Paris, who came and stayed two or three weeks in the house.

He arrived at Fleurieres almost in a state of elation; he had satisfied himself, logically, that in the presence of his threat of exposure they would, as he mentally phrased it, rattle down like unwound buckets. He remembered indeed that he must first catch his hare first ascertain what there was to expose; but after that, why shouldn't his happiness be as good as new again?

"Yes, this morning I was right; you have something on your mind heavier than Valentin de Bellegarde. Come, I'm a dying man and it's indecent to deceive me. Something happened after I left Paris. It was not for nothing that my sister started off at this season of the year for Fleurieres. Why was it? It sticks in my crop. I have been thinking it over, and if you don't tell me I shall guess."

The twenty-four hours wore themselves away, and the next morning Newman sprang to his feet with the resolution to return to Fleurieres and demand another interview with Madame de Bellegarde and her son. He lost no time in putting it into practice.

Newman started; he had not thought of Valentin and his errand on the Swiss frontier since the morning. The reflection made him restless again, and he took his leave. He went straight to his apartment, where, upon the table of the vestibule, he found a telegram. V. B." Newman groaned at this miserable news, and at the necessity of deferring his journey to the Chateau de Fleurieres.