“Wait, then,” she answered, deciding in a moment, “while I ask him if he is willing to receive it.”
She had intended to leave him on the doorstep while she went, but he followed her in closely, lingering only at the foot of the stairs while she ascended.
Louis-Marie sat in a little room which overlooked the hills. His ambitions and their unfulfilment were eternally symbolised before his vision. He was not much changed outwardly; only his eyes appeared physically to have shallowed. A cloud had come between them and the sun, and the transparency of their blue was grown chalky, as if a blind had been pulled down over his soul. And as yet no lights were lit behind, to show the shadows of what moved there. He was as quiet and courteous as ever in seeming; but women are as sensitive as deer to atmosphere, and Martha never saw him now but she quaked in anticipation of a storm to come.
He was reading, or feigning to. He looked over to her kindly.
“What is it, Martha?” he asked.
“There is one come to see you, monsieur, with a message from the stars.”
She trembled a little. He laughed.
“That is kind of him, whoever he is. Is it a fallen star, Martha? It can have no message for me otherwise.”
“It is fallen, monsieur, and therefore, maybe, in sympathy with its kind. It is Dr Bonito, the mage and soothsayer.”
“What! is he too the victim of a reformation? Heaven is very impartial, Martha. It condescends to no degrees in its chastisement. As well, after all, to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”