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So out we went together into the sweet coast-land air, the sweeter for the gale of the night before, and we walked through the old yew-lined paths, and out into the park, and so round the castle, looking up at the gables, the grey pinnacles, the oak-mullioned windows, the ancient wing with its crenulated walls and its meurtriere windows, the modern with its pleasant verandah and veil of honeysuckle.
Those sausage-shaped curls, close to the ears, are confidants; those that dangle round the temples, favorites; the sparkling lock that descends alone over the right eyebrow is the passagère; and, above all, the gorgeous knot that unites the curls and descends on the left breast, is aptly named the meurtrière.
But the wildest philosophical credulity is staggered by a matiere meurtriere which is disengaged by the body of a sober, but not by that of an intoxicated, murderer, which survives tempests in the air, and endures for many years, but is dissipated the moment the murderer confesses.
When Vallemont defended Aymar in the book called 'La Physique Occulte, he declared that Aymar was physically affected to an unpleasant extent by matiere meurtriere, but was not thus agitated when he used the rod to discover minerals. We have seen that, if modern evidence can be trusted, holders of the rod are occasionally much agitated even when they are only in search of wells.
These excuses seem to annihilate the wild contemporary theory of Chauvin and others, that the body of a murderer naturally exhales an invisible matiere meurtriere peculiar indestructible atoms, which may be detected by the expert with the rod. Something like the same theory, we believe, has been used to explain the pretended phenomena of haunted houses.
As I glanced back at the black keep of Grosbois, and at the sinister figure who stood looking after us from beside the gateway, I saw from over his head a white handkerchief gleam for an instant in a last greeting from one of the gloomy meurtriere windows, and again a chill ran through me as I thought of the fearless girl and of the hands in which we were leaving her.
Afterward he kissed her. And presently Adelais lifted her head, with a mocking little laugh. "Sorrow!" she echoed. "I think there is no sorrow in all the world. Mount, my lord, mount! See where brother Olivier waits for us yonder." "Fortune fuz par clercs jadis nominee, Qui toi, Francois, crie et nomme meurtriere."
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