there is no night-owl with a
cold in her head which is not music to the governor's voice."

"That may be; but yet at this moment his voice was so plaintive that I
was almost affected. 'Sir,' I said to him, believe me--' 'Let me!--let
me!' replied he, interrupting me. 'It is so consoling to be able to say
to any one that we are suffering!' He evidently mistook me for some
other person. You may suppose that when he thus addressed me I felt sure
it was a mistake, or that he had a brain fever. I disengaged myself from
him, saying, 'Sir, compose yourself, it is I!' Then he looked at me with
a stupid air, and exclaimed, 'Who is it? Who's there? What do you want
with me?' And he passed, at each question, his hand over his brow, as if
to dispel the cloud which obscured his mind."

"Which obscured his mind! Capital! Well spoken! We'll get up a melodrama
amongst us!

"'Methinks a man with such a power of words,
Should try his hand at melodrame!'"

"Chalamel, will you be quiet?"

"What could ail the governor?"

"_Ma foi!_ How can I tell? But of this I'm sure, that when he recovers
he'll sing to another tune, for he frowned terribly, and said to me
sharply, without giving me time to reply, 'What did you come for? Have
you been here long? Am I to be surrounded with spies? What did I say?
Reply--answer!' _Ma foi!_ he looked so savage that I replied, 'I heard
nothing, sir; I only this moment entered.' 'You are not deceiving me?'
'No, sir.' 'Well, what do you want?' 'Some signatures, sir.' 'Give me
the papers!' And then he signed and signed--without reading--half a
dozen notarial deeds; he who never put his initials to a deed without
spelling it over word by word, and twice over from one end to the other.
I remarked that from time to time his hand relaxed in the middle of his
signature, as if he were absorbed in some fixed idea; then he went on
signing very quick, and, as it were, convulsively. When all were signed
he told me to retire, and I heard him descend the small staircase which
leads from his room to the courtyard."

"I still ask what can be the matter with him?"

"Gentlemen, it is perhaps Madame Seraphin whom he regrets."

"He? What, he regret any one?"

"Now I think of it, the porter said that the cure of Bonne Nouvelle and
the vicar had called several times to see the governor, and he was
denied to them. Is not that surprising?--they who almost lived here!"

"What puzzles me is to know what the workpe