planation, which, however, by its very simplicity, highly commended
itself to Monsieur Blancmesnil.

Pere Guinardon, quite beside himself, exclaimed:

"Are you going to tell me, Monsieur d'Esparvieu, that Saint John was
astigmatic because he beheld a woman clothed with the sun, crowned with
stars, with the moon about her feet; the Beast with seven heads and ten
horns, and the seven angels robed in white linen that bore the seven
cups filled with the wrath of the Living God?"

"After all," said Monsieur Gaetan, by way of conclusion, "people are
right in admiring El Greco if he had genius enough to impose his
morbidity of vision upon them. By the same token, the contortions to
which he subjects the human countenance may give satisfaction to those
who love suffering,--a class more numerous than is generally supposed."

"Monsieur," replied the Comte Desmaisons, stroking his luxuriant beard
with his long, thin hand, "we must love those that love us. Suffering
loves us and attaches itself to us. We must love it if life is to be
supportable to us. In the knowledge of this truth lies the strength and
value of Christianity. Alas! I do not possess the gift of Faith. It is
that which drives me to despair."

The old man thought of her for whom he had been mourning twenty years,
and forthwith his reason left him, and his thoughts abandoned
themselves unresistingly to the morbid imaginings of gentle and
melancholy madness.

Having, he said, made a study of psychic matters, and having, with the
co-operation of a favourable medium, carried out experiments concerning
the nature and duration of the soul, he had obtained some remarkable
results, which, however, did not afford him complete satisfaction. He
had succeeded in viewing the soul of his dead wife under the appearance
of a transparent and gelatinous mass which bore not the slightest
resemblance to his adored one. The most painful part about the whole
experiment--which he had repeated over and over again--was that the
gelatinous mass, which was furnished with a number of extremely slender
tentacles, maintained them in constant motion in time to a rhythm
apparently intended to make certain signs, but of what these movements
were supposed to convey there was not the slightest clue.

During the whole of this narrative Monsieur Blancmesnil had been
whispering in a corner with the youthful Octavie, who sat mute and
still, with her eyes on the ground.

Now Zephyrine had by no me