“Margot?” he said, speaking to a shadow.

Jehan rose from his chair and approached his master.  His withered, leathery face had lost the power to express emotion; but his faded eyes sparkled suspiciously.

“Monsieur?” he said.

“What o’clock is it?” asked the marquis, irritably.

“It is midnight, Monsieur.”

“Monsieur le Comte has not come in yet?  With his sponging friends, I suppose; drinking and gaming at the Corne d’Abondance.”  Thus had the marquis spoken in the Rochelle days.  “A sip of wine; I am cold.”  Jehan put his arm around the thin shoulders of his master and held the glass to the trembling lips.  A hectic flush superseded the pallor, and the delusion was gone.  The coal glowed.  “It is you, Jehan?  Well, my faithful henchman, you will have to continue the journey alone.  My relays have given out.  Go back to Perigny in the spring.  I shall be buried here.”

Jehan shivered.  The earth would be very cold here.

“The lad was a prophet.  He told me that I should die in bed like this, alone, without one of my blood near me at the end.  He spoke of phantoms, too. . . .  They are everywhere.  And without the consolation of a friendly priest!”

“Monsieur, do you know me?”

“Why, yes, Jehan.”

“Brother Jacques and Monsieur le Comte returned this day from the wilderness.  I have seen them.”

The marquis’s hands became still.  “Pride has filled my path with black pits.  Jehan, after all, was it a dream?”

“What, Monsieur?”

“That duel with D’Herouville”

“It was no dream, Monsieur.”

“That is well.  I should, like to see Monsieur le Comte.  He must be a man now.”

“I will call him.”

“Presently, presently.  He forgave me.  Only, I should like to have him know that my lips lied when I turned him away.  Brother Jacques; he will satisfy my curiosity in the matter of absolution.  Death?  I never feared it; I do not now.  However, I leave with some regret; there were things which I appreciated not in my pursuit of pleasure.  Ah well, to die in bed, Jehan, was not among my calculations.  But human calculations never balance in the sum total.  I have dropped a figure on the route, somewhere, and my account is without head or tail.  I recall a letter on the table.  See if it is there, Jehan.”

Jehan searched and found a letter under a book.

“What does it say?”

“’To Monsieur le Marquis de Perigny, to be delivered into his hands at my death’,” Jehan read.

“From . . . from my son?”

“I do not know, Monsieur.”

“Open it and read it.”

“It is in Latin, Monsieur, a language unknown to me,” Jehan carefully explained.

“Give it to me;” but the marquis’s fingers trembled and shook and his eyes stared in vain.  “My eyes have failed me, too.  I can not distinguish one letter from another.  Give it to Brother Jacques when he comes.  He is a priest; they all read Latin.”