Morrie waited at the usual spot for the rendezvous he was wont to have with Valartine. The chipmunks were off on holiday on the coast of Lindon. Hiding in a barrel of pipe-weed, he was filled with a dread bordering on despair at Valartine's delay, watching the long shadows of that cheerless house, without a light to be perceived through its curtain of horror, save a corpse-light that illuminated nothing but Villefaramir's execrable taste in architecture.
As the moon came out from the cloud that covered it like the veil of Luthienne, Morrie saw Villefaramir leave the house, followed by a man in black, whom he recognised as Dr. Tolliers. They approached the barrel where Meurtrier was hiding.
"Ah, dear doctor!" cried Villefaramir. "Voici the Valards that have cursed my house with the eagle-droppings of Manvre! What a horrible death! Seek not to console me, for the wound is too deep!"
A cold sweat froze the forehead of the young man in hiding. Who then had died in that house that the steuard called accursed?
"My dear monsieur de Villefaramir," said the doctor in a voice so terrible as to redouble the fears of Morrie. "I have not brought you here to console you; on the contrary, to tell you that, beyond the misfortune that has afflicted you lurks another, far worse. Let us be seated." Villefaramir fell rather than sat on a bench.
