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 you can't show your mug in public? It's a queer state of things, any way."

Queer it appeared to be, look at it how you like. Here was a boy, who, according to madame's story, was being trained for a priest,—one whom we all thought to be in Paris,—masquerading at midnight in the woods of the château. More than that, he was not masquerading alone, for I had not watched the pavilion for ten minutes when I saw another lad, slim and rather short, and wearing a soft felt shooting hat, slip out of the shelter of the trees, and knock three times upon the door of the little building. The door was opened at once; but, although there were now two of them in the house, not a light did I see. Back and front, the place was as dark as the grave, and as mysterious. Not a sound of any thing human was to be heard. You might have passed the pavilion a hundred times and never have known that a living thing occupied it. You might have walked for a month in the park and yet have been ignorant that such a nest was a part of it. Whatever were his reasons, the Comte de Faugère had a roosting-ground which many a hunted man might have envied.