The stranger had paused, on uttering his first address.—But it was only for a moment. Again the lightning of his eyes flashed upon the face of his auditor, and he resumed; but what he said was in the French language.
"Louis de Montemar, you have read the letter which I conveyed to you, from your father the Baron de Ripperda?"
"I have."
Again the stranger bent his head on his hand. The long plumes covered his face from observation; but Louis perceived that his whole frame trembled. After another, and a longer pause, he spoke again.—"And you are prepared to obey your father's injunctions, contained in that letter?"
"I am. For I believe my father would not so entirely commit the temporal, and therefore eternal, welfare of his son, to any man who is not worthy of the charge."
The stranger rose from his seat.—"I am the man to whom your father has confided this awful trust; and I accept your obedience. Know me as the Sieur Ignatius: and whatever else I may seem hereafter, it is not your interest to pry into. Your duty is to know of me no more than what I tell you; and to obey me, as if you knew me without reserve. To-morrow, at noon, your task shall be appointed.—Meanwhile, stir not hence. Refresh yourself from the fatigues of your journey; and rest confident in me and your father. There is my pledge."
Before Louis could find words in a foreign language, to answer, satisfactorily to himself so extraordinary a speech, the Sieur Ignatius laid the promised miniature of the late Baroness upon the table, and disappeared from the room.
CHAP. XII.
Having partaken of a slight refreshment, which the solitary domestic of the mansion set before him, Louis desired to be conducted to his bed-chamber. The man opened a door at the further extremity of the saloon, and the weary traveller followed into an apartment even more desolate than the one he had left. The dull cold light of a winter moon, shrouded in snow-clouds, gleamed through the mouldering remnants of what had once been damask curtains. These perishing relics of departed grandeur were all of furniture that presented itself to the eye of Louis, as he looked around for a place of rest. At last, in a distant recess deep in darkness, the candle he held in his hand shewed a mass of something heaped together. He approached, and found his own travelling palliasse on the floor, and his baggage so disposed, as to supply the place of chair and table.