physical peace seemed to steal over him.

Mr Bethany was sitting as he had left him, looking steadily on
the floor, when Lawford returned. He flattened out the book on
the table with a sniff of impatience. And dragging the candle
nearer, and stooping his nose close to the fusty print, he began
to read.

'Was this in the house?' he inquired presently.

'No,' said Lawford; 'it was lent to me by a friend--Herbert.'

'H'm! don't know him. Anyhow, precious poor stuff this is. This
Sabathier, whoever he is, seems to be a kind of clap-trap
eighteenth-century adventurer who thought the world would be
better off, apparently, for a long account of all his sentimental
amours. Rousseau, with a touch of Don Quixote in his composition,
and an echo of that prince of bogies, Poe! What, in the name of
wonder, induced you to fix on this for your holiday reading?'

'Sabathier's alive, isn't he?'

'I never said he wasn't. He's a good deal too much alive for my
old wits, with his Mam'selle This and Madame the Other;
interesting enough, perhaps, for the professional literary nose
with a taste for patchouli.'

'Yet I suppose even that is not a very rare character?' Mr
Bethany peered up from the dingy book at his ingenuous
questioner. 'I should say decidedly that the fellow was a very