this change; tell me, I charge you, sir, why are you
now so shaken, so wandering in your noble intellect,
even mad; you whom I left this morning, sad indeed,
yet sane?"

"I do not know whether I was sane or not when
I did what I have done, or whether I am so just
now; but for this scene, which must appear most
strange to you, see there what shall explain it all,"
replied the advocate; and the gown was partially
withdrawn from the corpse by one of the spectators,
and Claude with his male companions gazed upon it
aghast, whilst Amanda turning away in terror and
uttering a feeble moan, hid her face in the old man's
breast.

"How has this happened?" Claude demanded at
last with a voice hoarse and guttural with abhorrence;
and the advocate shrugging his shoulders cynically
replied:

"A bruise, a fatal fall; strange that he should
have died of it. It has been said, the lower in the
scale of being, the higher the tenacity of life. Yet
here is an inferior intelligence dies of as little cor-
poreal damage, as might a poet or a philosopher. There
is no certainty in speculation, for by this experiment
it has been proved, that the bulls-eye in the stable
window, in falling is as fragile as the palace's clearest
pane of crystal. Who would have thought it? A
dunce, that no one would have branded for having
brains, has from a mere tumble given up the ghost.
Bury him, bury him; I am sorry for it, but cannot
howl," and at these last words a howl was heard
from below, and soon Babet Blais came rushing along
the corridor, wringing her hands, and frantically

[[122]]

p121 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p122w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p123

v?