"A few weeks ago, someone died chez the owner of the garden wherein I found myself, and I heard the master confide his fears and doubts to a physician in an ornamental waistcoat. It was the second time in a month had death had stricken there, rapid and unforeseen, that one would believe designed by some exterminating Valard in wrath against the follies of the Dunédains, like the spell that turned all the cognac in Numéneur into mineral water.
"The doctor replied that the death was not natural, that it must be attributed to poison!"
"Vraiment!" said the Count in the light tone that oft and anon served as a mask in moments of supreme emotion, to disguise rougeur or pallour or the very attention wherewith he listened. "Have you really heard such things, Meurtrier?"
"Yes, I have," replied Morrie. "And a third time death has come into that house, and hath reigned there so utterly that the servants fled, unmanned, like young gallants who had heard that Minas-Morgoule was the fashionable place to attend a ball, but well other dance one performed in that hideous abode, that they durst not waltz there."
