And as she spoke the door opened, and on the threshold stood a singularly handsome young man clad in the gay uniform of a Carlist general.
"Capital!" he exclaimed, as his eyes fell on Paul. "Magnificent! He is quite as fat as the other two. How clever of you, darling!" and throwing his arms round her, he embraced her tenderly. A few seconds later and he suddenly thrust her from him.
"Quick! quick!" he cried. "Run away, darling! run away instantly. I can feel myself changing!" and he pushed her gently to the door.
Mlle de Nurrez took one glance at Paul as she left the room. "Poor fool!" she said, half pityingly, half mockingly. "Poor fat fool! Though you may no longer believe in women you will certainly believe in werwolves—now." And as the door slammed after her, the wildest of shrieks from within demonstrated that, for once in her life, Mlle de Nurrez had spoken the truth.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WERWOLF IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS
BELGIUM abounds in stories of werwolves, all more or less of the same type. As in France, the werwolf, in Belgium, is not restricted to one sex, but is, in an equal proportion, common to both.
By far the greater number of werwolfery cases in this country are to be met with amongst the sand-dunes on the sea coast. They also occur in the district of the Sambre; but I have never heard of any lycanthropous streams or pools in Belgium, nor yet of any wolf-producing flowers, such as are, at times, found in the Balkan Peninsula.