"
"Yes," said Julian, "I know."
"What? You know it? Well, it is not my fault. The gentleman come last
night with a lady, his wife, I suppose. How am I to know? He ask for a
room. He look perfectly well. I give them the room. They go to bed. At
four o'clock in the morning I hear a bell ring. I get up. I go on the
landing to listen. I hear the bell again. I run to the chamber of the
lady and gentleman. The lady is gone. The gentleman falls back on the bed
as I come in and dies. Mon Dieu! It is--"
He suddenly paused in his excited narrative. Valentine had moved his
position slightly and was now standing almost immediately under the
gas-lamp that lit the glass door.
"You--you are relation of him?" he said. "You come to see him?"
"I have come to see him, certainly," said Valentine. "But I am no
relation of his. This gentleman," and he pointed to Julian, "knew him
well, and wished to look at him once more."
The landlord seemed puzzled. He glanced from Valentine to Julian, then
back again to Valentine.
"But," he began, once more addressing himself to the latter, "you are
like--there is something; when the poor gentleman fell on the bed and
died he had your eyes. Yes, yes, you are relation of him."
"No," Valentine said; "you are mistaken.
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