er-spot burned and scorched upon his
projecting cheek-bones; a sort of incessant tremor, amounting
occasionally to convulsive spasms and starts, shook his attenuated
frame. His coarse but wasted hands seemed parched with feverish heat,
while his bloodshot eyes were shrouded from view by the large green
glasses he wore. Altogether his face was a fearful index of the internal
ravages of a fast consuming disease.

The physiognomy of Polidori offered a strong contrast to that of the
notary. Nothing could express a more bitter irony, a more biting
contempt, than the features of this hardened villain, surrounded as they
were by a mass of red hair, slightly mingled with gray, hanging in wild
disorder over his pale, wrinkled brow, and partially hiding his sharp,
penetrating eyes, which, green and transparent as the stone known as the
_aqua marine_, were placed very close to his hooked nose, and imparted a
still more sinister character to the look of sarcastic malevolence that
dwelt on his thin, compressed lips. Such was Polidori, as, attired in a
suit of entire black, he sat beside the desk of Jacques Ferrand. At the
sight of the priest both rose.

"And how do you find yourself, my good M. Ferrand?" inquired the abbe,
in a tone of deep solicitude; "let me hope you are better."

"Much the same as you last saw me, M. l'Abbe," replied the notary. "No
sleep, no rest, and constantly devoured by fever; but God's will be
done!"

"Alas, M. l'Abbe!" interposed Polidori, "my poor friend is no better;
but what a blessed spirit he is in! What resignation! Finding no other
relief from his suffering than in doing good!"

"Have the goodness to cease these praises, which I am far from
meriting," said the notary, in a short, dry tone, as though struggling
hard to restrain his feelings of rage and resentment; "to the Lord alone
belongs the right of judging what is good and what evil,--I am but a
miserable sinner!"

"We are all sinners," replied the abbe, mildly; "but all have not the
extreme charity by which you are distinguished, my worthy friend. Few,
indeed, like you, are capable of weaning their affections from their
earthly goods, that they may be employed only as a means of leading a
more Christianlike life. Are you still determined upon retiring from
your profession, the better to devote yourself to religious duties?"

"I disposed of my practice a day or two ago, for a large and handsome
sum. This money, united with other property