My Library

most delightful fragrance floated through the room. “During the burning process, the operator sat upon the stool, and gazed fixedly and intently upon, or rather toward, the open sash, while the rest of us were chatting merrily, and wondering what would be the result of all these weird and curious preparations. “I said the rest of us were merrily chatting, but must qualify that observation by excluding from this employment one person, and that person was—myself, for I found it utterly impossible to mingle in the conversation with that abandon and unreserve which characterized the others. It was altogether beyond my power to forget the tremendous experiences of that very day, which I had undergone. A weight was on my spirit that could not be lifted off. The ‘Ghost of Ravalette’ seemed to be invisibly hovering over me, and although unseen, his presence seemed to be palpably felt by me. The events at Belleville constantly obtruded themselves before the eye of the mind; the affair at the gardener’s, the singular result of his impromptu wager, the woman at the Barrière, and, above all, the frightful occurrences at the Rue Michel le Compte, with its sure—absolutely sure— termination on the Guillotine—the miserable and ignominious death of D’Emprat, and the unearthly means whereby his deed of crime— the crime a horrible murder, committed thirty-