more brilliantly the darker be the night, had shone on him and
amused and enchanted him. And then, in one moment, God and man--or if
not God, the devil--had joined to quench the hope; and this morning he
sat sunk in deepest despair, all in and around him dark. Hitherto he had
regarded appearances. He had hidden alike his malady and his fears, his
apathy and his mad revolt; he had lived as usual. But this morning he
was beyond that. He could not rouse himself, he could not be doing. His
servants, wondering why he did not go abroad or betake himself to some
task, came and peeped at him, and went away whispering and pointing and
nudging one another. And he knew it. But he paid no heed to them or to
anything, until it happened that his eyes, resting dully on the street,
marked a man who paused before the door and looked at the house, in
doubt it seemed, whether he should seek to enter or should pass on.

For an appreciable time the Syndic watched the loiterer without seeing
him. What did it matter to a dying man--a man whom heaven, impassive,
abandoned to the evil powers--who came or who went? But by-and-by his
eyes conveyed the identity of the man to his brain; and he rose to his
feet, laying his hands on a bell which stood on the table beside him. In
the act of ringing he changed his mind, and laying the bell down, he
strode himself to the outer door, the house door, and opened it. The man
was still in the street. Scarcely showing himself, Blondel caught his
eye, signed to him to enter, and held the door while he did so.

Claude Mercier--for he it was--entered awkwardly. He followed the Syndic
into the parlour, and standing with his cap in his hand, began
shamefacedly to explain that he had come to learn how the Syndic was,
after--after that which had happened----He did not finish the sentence.

For that matter, Blondel did not allow him to finish. He had passed at
sight of the youth into the other of the two conditions between which
his days were divided. His eyes glittered, his hands trembled. "Have you
done anything?" he asked eagerly; and the voice in which he said it
surprised the young man. "Have you done anything?"

"As to Basterga, do you mean, Messer Syndic?"

"As to what else? What else?"

"No, Messer Blondel, I have not."

"Nor learned anything?"

"No, nothing."

"But you don't mean--to leave it there?" Blondel cried, his voice rising
high. And he sat down and rose up again. "You have done nothing, but