at dinner with us, and the conversation turned
upon the illiberal policy of the new Belgian Government. Most of the
guests at table were landowners and extreme reactionaries. The
conversation took that insufferably brutal tone of repression at all
hazards which is the first thought of the governing classes of a
despotic country, when alarmed by the spread of liberal opinions.

I could see that both the Count and Lucia put a strong restraint upon
themselves, for I knew that their sympathies were with the oppressed of
their own nation. But the excitement of M. Bourget was painful to see.
He could speak but little English (for out of compliment to us the Count
and the others were speaking English); and though on several occasions
he attempted to tell the company that matters in his country were not as
they were being represented, he had not sufficient words to express his
meaning, and so subsided into a dogged silence.

My own acquaintance with the political movements in Europe was not
sufficient to enable me to claim any special knowledge; but I knew the
facts of the Belgian dispute well enough, and I made a point of putting
them clearly before the company. As I did so, I saw the Count lean
towards me, his face whiter than usual and his eyes dark and intense.
The Countess, too, listened very intently; but the architect could not
keep his seat.

As soon as I had finished he rose, and, coming round to where I sat,
offered me his hand.

"You have spoken well," he said; "you are my brother. You have said what
I was not able to say myself."

On the next day the architect, to show his friendship, offered to take
us all over a chalet which had been built on the cliffs above the
Kursaal, of which very strange tales had gone abroad. The Count and
Henry had not come back from one of their expeditions, so that only the
Countess Lucia and myself accompanied M. Bourget.

As we went he told us a strange story. The chalet was built and
furnished to the order of a German countess from Mannheim, who, having
lost her husband, conceived that the light of her life had gone out, and
so determined to dwell in an atmosphere of eternal gloom.

To the outer view there was nothing extraordinary about the place--a
chalet in the Swiss-Italian taste, with wooden balconies and steep
outside stairs.

M. Bourget threw open the outer door, to which we ascended by a wide
staircase. We entered, and found ourselves in a very dark hall. All the
wo