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142 Marie, whose face danced for a moment before my eyes, and that dead fellow who hugged the box so ludicrously. So I tried to call to Jean, but the trouble was too great, and, as he would be sure to come out soon, I waited; and I blinked at the smoldering wood-ashes in the fire till my eyes closed and the sleep was all but come, despite the smart of my arm and the ache in my unsupported back.

But just before I had forgotten everything the door of the inner room creaked and opened. My side was toward it and I did not look round. I opened my eyes and feebly waved my left hand. Then a voice came, clear and fresh:

“Jean, is it you? Well, is the duke at the house?”

I must be dreaming; that was my immediate conviction, for the voice that I heard was a voice I knew well, but one not likely to be heard here, in Jean’s cottage, at four o’clock in the morning. Decidedly I was dreaming, and as in order to dream a man must be asleep, I was pleased at the idea and nodded happily, smiling and blinking in self-congratulation. But that pleasant minute of illusion was my last; for the voice cried in tones too full of animation, too void of dreamy vagueness, too real and actual to let me longer set them down as made of my own brain:

“Heaven! Why, it’s Mr. Aycon! How in the world do you come here?”

To feel surprise at the Duchess of Saint-Maclou doing anything which she might please