that it is well to have nothing to do with it.--You must get rid of
our two lodgers; the elder because I suspect him; the youngster,
because he is too pretty. They neither of them seem to me to keep
Christian company. The boy is ever staring at the moon, the stars, and
the clouds, like a wizard watching for the hour when he shall mount
his broomstick; the other old rogue certainly makes some use of the
poor boy for his black art. My house stands too close to the river as
it is, and that risk of ruin is bad enough without bringing down fire
from heaven, or the love affairs of a countess. I have spoken. Do not
rebel."

In spite of her sway in the house, Jacqueline stood stupefied as she
listened to the edict fulminated against his lodgers by the sergeant
of the watch. She mechanically looked up at the window of the room
inhabited by the old man, and shivered with horror as she suddenly
caught sight of the gloomy, melancholy face, and the piercing eye that
so affected her husband, accustomed as he was to dealing with
criminals.

At that period, great and small, priests and laymen, all trembled
before the idea of any supernatural power. The word "magic" was as
powerful as leprosy to root up feelings, break social ties, and freeze
piety in the most generous soul. It suddenly struck the constable's
wife that she had never, in fact, seen either of her lodgers
exercising any human function. Though the younger man's voice was as
sweet and melodious as the tones of a flute, she so rarely heard it
that she was tempted to think his silence the result of a spell. As
she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white face, and saw
in memory the fine hair and moist brilliancy of those eyes, she
believed that they were indeed the artifices of the Devil. She