the more visible becomes the unseen. In childhood the external senses
are sharp; but maturity fuses flesh and spirit. He wished for a
priest, desiring to feel the arm of the Church around him. It was
late October,--a time which might be called the yearly Sabbath of
loups-garous.

"And what must a loup-garou do with himself?" pursued Sainte-Hélène.
"I should take to the woods, and sit and lick my chaps, and bless my
hide that I was for the time no longer a man."

"Saints! monsieur, he goes on a chase. He runs with his tongue lolled
out, and his eyes red as blood."

"What color are my eyes, Gaspard?"

The old Frenchman sputtered, "Monsieur, they are very black."

Sainte-Hélène drew his hand across them.

"It must be your firelight that is so red. I have been seeing as
through a glass of claret ever since I came in."

Gaspard moved farther into the corner, the stool legs scraping the
floor. Though every hair on his body crawled with superstition, he
could not suspect Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène. Yet the familiar face
altered strangely while he looked at it: the nose sunk with sudden
emaciation, and the jaws lengthened to a gaunt muzzle. There was a
crouching forward of the shoulders, as if the man were about to drop
on his hands and feet. Gaspard had once fallen down unconscious in
haying time; and this recalled to him the breaking up and shimmering