Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/115

Rh was attached to a chain. Over the door was a notice written in chalk, which read, " House to Let or to be Sold."

However, I had not made a mistake. The houses were too few for confusion to be possible. It was indeed my padlock, and, furthermore, two rose leaves on the pavement, near the door, indicated the exact spot where I had received the evidences of love from my well-beloved, and they also proved that the pavement in front of the house was rarely swept.

I asked several poor people in the neighbourhood if they could tell me where the keeper of this mysterious house lived.

"Not anywhere here," they replied curtly.

My question seemed to displease those to whom I put it; and this piqued my curiosity still further. Going from door to door I finished by going into a kind of dark cave, where was an old woman, who might have been suspected of witchcraft, for she had a black cat and was cooking some mysterious decoction in a cauldron.

"You want to see over the house of Madam Lucrezia?" she said. "I have the key of it."

"All right. Show me over."

"Do you wish to take it?" she asked, smiling with a dubious air.

"Yes, if it suits me."