or--so lightly
that no one but Maitre Rene heard the noise, doubtless because he had
been expecting it.

Without any hesitation he went to the speaking-tube and put his ear to
the mouthpiece, at the same time asking La Mole several idle questions.
Then he added, suddenly:

"Now put all your energy into your wish, and call the person whom you
love."

La Mole knelt, as if about to address a divinity; and Rene, going into
the other compartment, went out noiselessly by the exterior staircase,
and an instant afterward light steps trod the floor of his shop.

When La Mole rose he beheld before him Maitre Rene. The Florentine held
in his hand a small wax figure, very indifferently modelled; it wore a
crown and mantle.

"Do you desire to be always beloved by your royal mistress?" demanded
the perfumer.

"Yes, even if it cost me my life--even if my soul should be the
sacrifice!" replied La Mole.

"Very good," said the Florentine, taking with the ends of his fingers
some drops of water from a ewer and sprinkling them over the figure, at
the same time muttering certain Latin words.

La Mole shuddered, believing that some sacrilege was committed.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I am christening this figure with the name of Marguerite."

"What for?"

"To establish a sympathy."

La Mole opened his mouth to prevent his going any further, but a mocking
look from Coconnas stopped him.

Rene, who had noticed the impulse, waited. "Your absolute and undivided
will is necessary," he said.

"Go on," said La Mole.

Rene wrote on a small strip of red paper some cabalistic characters, put
it into the eye of a steel needle, and with the needle pierced the small
wax model in the heart.

Strange to say, at the orifice of the wound appeared a small drop of
blood; then he set fire to the paper.

The heat of the needle melted the wax around it and dried up the spot of
blood.

"Thus," said Rene, "by the power of sympathy, your love shall pierce and
burn the heart of the woman whom you love."

Coconnas, true to his repute as a bold thinker, laughed in his mustache,
and in a low tone jested; but La Mole, desperately in love and full of
superstition, felt a cold perspiration start from the roots of his hair.

"And now," continued Rene, "press your lips to the lips of the figure,
and say: 'Marguerite, I love thee! Come, Marguerite!'"

La Mole obeyed.

At this moment the door of the second chamber was heard to open, and