"I command you to hope! Do you understand?" cried the Count, holding aloft his Ring. "Know that I never lie and never err."
"Oh Luthienne! Luthienne!" cried Morrie. "I who left her dying!"
Monte Fato placed a hand upon his forehead. What took place in that head full of so many lugubrious secrets? What speaks to that soul, human yet implacable, and in what dialect of Elvois? What was the Count; when did he enter the monde, and in what depressing hour would he leave it? Érou alone, perhaps, knows!
"Meurtrier," he said, "return tranquilly chez vous, and do not make a move; I will give you news."
"You!" cried Morrie. "Mon Érou! Mon Érou! You terrify me, Count, with your sang-froid! Are you one of the Valards, do you have power over death? Are you no longer a man, or even a hobbite?"
And the entire room was filled with darkness, save that a light emanated from the Count's Ring. And the young man, who recoiled not before the fan fiction that was the deadliest weapon of the wargues, recoiled before the Count of Monte Fato with an unspeakable terror.
"Go now," said the Count with a smile so melancholy that Morrie felt tears pricking in his eyes. "I can do much for you."
