and a pillow; and that day and for many
days, the gaoler hung above his prisoner's pallet with the tenderness
of a woman. Was he haunted by the vision of a burly figure that had
bent over his own sick bed in the Rue de la Croix? Did the voice
(once so familiar in counsel and benediction!) echo still in his ears?

"_The blessing of a dying priest upon you if you do well, and his
curse if you do ill to this poor child, whose home was my home in
better days._"

Be this as it may, Antoine tended his patient with all the constancy
compatible with keeping his presence in the prison a secret; and it
was not till the crisis was safely past, that he began to visit the
cell less frequently, and reassumed the harsh manners which he held to
befit his office.

Monsieur the Viscount's mind rambled much in his illness. He called
for his mother, who had long been dead. He fancied himself in his own
chateau. He thought that all his servants stood in a body before him,
but that not one would move to wait on him. He thought that he had
abundance of the most tempting food and cooling drinks, but placed
just beyond his reach. He thought that he saw two lights like stars
near together, which were close to the ground, and kept appearing and
then vanishing away. In time he became more sensible; the chateau
melted into the stern reality of his prison walls; the delicate food
became bread and water; the servants disappeared like spectres; but in
the empty cell, in the dark corners near the floor, he still fancied
that he saw two sparks of light coming and going, appearing and then
vanishing away. He watched them till his giddy head would bear it no
longer, and he closed his eyes and slept. When he awoke he was much
better, but when he raised himself and turned towards the
stone--there, by the bread and the broken pitcher, sat a dirty, ugly,
wrinkled toad, gazing at him, Monsieur the Viscount, with eyes of
yellow fire.

Monsieur the Viscount had long ago forgotten the toad which had
alarmed his childhood; but his national dislike to that animal had not
been lessened by years, and the toad of the prison seemed likely to
fare no better than the toad of the chateau. He dragged himself from
his pallet, and took up one of the large damp stones which lay about
the floor of the cell, to throw at the intruder. He expected that when
he approached it, the toad would crawl away, and that he could throw
the stone after it; but to his surprise, the beast