Page:Tales of Today.djvu/187

Rh that seemed to be the entrance to the catacombs of a graveyard of old furniture, one of my finest armoires greeted my eyes. I approached it trembling in every limb, trembling to such a degree that I dared not touch it. I put forth my hand to touch it; I hesitated and drew it back. And yet there could be no doubt of its identity; a unique armoire of the time of Louis XIII., that any one who had seen it but once would recognize without difficulty. Suddenly casting my eyes a tittle further, toward the more dimly lighted depths of this gallery, they lighted on three of my fauteuils covered with fine-stitch tapestry, then, further still, I perceived my two Henri II. tables, such rarities that people used to come from Paris merely for a look at them.

Think! just think what my feelings must have been!

And I advanced, paralyzed, in a fever of emotion; still, I advanced—for I am a brave man—I advanced as a knight of the dark ages might have penetrated a lair of necromancers. As I proceeded I found everything that had belonged to me, my chandeliers, my books, my pictures, my stuffs of silk and woolen, my arms, everything, excepting the desk that contained my letters, and of that I could see nothing anywhere.

I kept on and on, descending into dark galleries only to climb out of them again immediately and mount to floors above. I was alone. I called; no one responded. I was alone; there was'not a soul in that great house with its labyrinthine passages.

Night came on, and I had to sit down, in the darkness, on one of my own chairs, for I would not go away. Every now and then I shouted: "Halloa! halloa! some one!"

I had been there, certainly, more than an hour,