threshold. The expression
upon his young master's face so startled the faithful old man that he
nearly dropped the lighted candle that he carried in his hand.

"Why are you here, Master Norbert?" asked he in a voice that trembled
with emotion.

"I was looking for----I wanted to find----," faltered Norbert.

Jean's suspicions at once became certainties; he walked up to his young
master, and whispered in his ear,--

"You are looking for the Duke's bottle of wine, are you not? It is quite
safe; for I have taken it to my room. To-morrow the contents shall be
emptied away, and there will be no proof existing."

Jean spoke in such a low voice that Norbert guessed rather than heard
his words, and yet it seemed that the accusing whisper resounded like
thunder through the Chateau, filling the old house from cellar to
roof-tree.

"Be quiet," said he, laying his hand on the old man's lips, and gazing
around him with wild and affrighted glances.

A more complete confession could hardly have been made.

"Fear nothing, Master Norbert," answered Jean; "we are quite alone. I
know that there are words which should never be even breathed; and if I
have ventured to speak, it was because it was my duty to warn you, and
to inculcate on you the necessity of caution."

Norbert was filled with horror when he saw that the old man believed him
to be really guilty.

"Jean," cried he, "you are wrong in your suspicions. I tell you that my
father never tasted that wine. I snatched the glass from him before
his lips had touched it. I flung it out into the courtyard, and, if you
search, you will find its scattered fragments there still."

"I am not sitting in judgment upon you; what you tell me to believe I am
ready to accept."

"Ah!" cried Norbert passionately, "he does not believe me; he thinks
that I am guilty. I swear to you by all that I hold most sacred in this
world, that I am innocent of this deed."

The attached servant shook his head with a melancholy air.

"Of course, of course," said he; "but it is for us two to save the honor
of the house of Champdoce. Should it happen that any suspicions should
be aroused, put all the guilt upon my shoulders. I will defend myself in
a manner which will only fix the crime more firmly upon me. I will not
throw away the bottle, but will retain it in my room, so that it may be
found there, and its contents will be a damnatory evidence against me.
What matters it how a poor man like me is sen