"Ernanton," continued Chicot, "lives at court; it must be some lady belonging to the court, then, with whom he has this affair. Poor fellow, will he love her? Heaven preserve him from such a thing! he is going to fall headlong into that gulf of perdition. Very good! ought I not to read him a moral lecture thereupon?
"A moral lecture, which would be both useless and absurd, doubly so the former, and tenfold the latter.
"Useless, because he won't understand it, and, even if he did understand it, would refuse to listen to it.
"Absurd, because I should be doing far better to go to bed, and to think a little about that poor Borromée.
"On this latter subject," continued Chicot, who had suddenly become thoughtful, "I perceive one thing; namely, that remorse does not exist, and is only a relative feeling; the fact is, I do not feel any remorse at all for having killed Borromée, since the manner in which Monsieur de Carmainges' affair occupies my mind makes me forget that I have killed the man; and if he, on his side, had nailed me to the table as I nailed him to the wainscot, he would certainly have had no more remorse than I have about it myself, at the present moment."
Chicot had reached so far in his reasonings, his inductions, and his philosophy, which had consumed a good hour and a half altogether, when he was drawn from his train of thought by the arrival of a litter proceeding from the direction of the inn of the "Brave Chevalier."
This litter stopped at the threshold of the mysterious house.
A veiled lady alighted from it, and disappeared within the door which Ernanton held half open.
"Poor fellow!" murmured Chicot, "I was not mistaken; and it was indeed a lady he was waiting for, and so now I shall go to bed."
Whereupon Chicot rose, but remained motionless, although standing up.