what did you stop behind to do?" i asked as we prepared for bed at the hotel.
he flashed his quick, infectious smile at me, and tweaked his mustache ends, for all the world like a self-satisfied tomcat furbishing his whiskers after finishing a bowl of cream. "there was an alteration to that epitaph i had to make. you recall it read, 'ici repose malheureusement—here lies unhappily julie d'ayen'? that is no longer true. i chiseled off the malheureusement. thanks to monsieur édouard's courage and my cleverness the old one's prophecy was fulfilled tonight; and poor, small julie has found rest at last. tomorrow morning they celebrate the first of a series of masses i have arranged for her at the cathedral."
"what was that drink you gave ned just before he left us?" i asked curiously. "it smelled like——"
"le bon dieu and the devil know—not i," he answered with a grin. "it was a voodoo love-potion. i found the realization that she had been dead a century and more so greatly troubled our young friend that he swore he could not be affectionate to our poor julie; so i went down to the negro quarter in the afternoon and arranged to have a philtre brewed. eh bien, that aged black one who concocted it assured me that she could inspire love for the image of a crocodile in the heart of anyone who looked upon it after taking but a drop of her decoction, and she charged me twenty dollars for it. but i think i had my money's worth. did it not work marvelously?"
"then julie's really gone? ned's coming back released her from the spell——"
"not wholly gone," he corrected. "her little body now is but a small handful of dust, her spirit is no longer earth-bound, and the familiar demon who in life was old maman dragonne has left the earth with her, as well. no longer will she metamorphosize into a snake and kill the faithless ones who kiss her little mistress and then forswear their troth, but—non, my friend, julie is not gone entirely, i think. in the years to come when ned and nella have long been joined in wedded bliss, there will be minutes when julie's face and julie's voice and the touch of julie's little hands will haunt his memory. there will always be one little corner of his heart which never will belong to madame nella minton, for it will be for ever julie's. yes, i think that it is so."
slowly, deliberately, almost ritualistically, he poured a glass of wine and raised it. "to you, my little poor one," he said softly as he looked across the sleeping city toward old saint denis cemetery. "you quit earth with a kiss upon your lips; may you sleep serene in paradise until another kiss shall waken you."
