The Press., 1898-07-14
THE WEREWOLF.

When surfeited with the adulation which received at court and wearied by the constant round of gayety which constituted my life in Paris, it was my habit to seek as Q retreat the old manor house of Kerzigolet, an estate lost in the depths of Brittany, and which had belonged for centuries to my husbands family. Bounded as it was upon one side by the sea and upon the other by the forest, my seclusion was complete. Still, in order to lose for a short space my identity, indeed my very personal ity and sex, adopted male attire and so arrayed in hunting suit spent 8 few weeks securing the woods, hunting, fishing and riding with old Gruigny (my husbands s overseer) as sole oompan- ion and attendant. Maids, fripperies and furbelows were for the time left be- hind in the gay metropolis
 Here I was as free as airl Even in the village five miles westward, was known only as "M. le Marquis, and when I swaggered jauntily up the aisle of the little village church on a Sunday morning, with my spurs dangling and my sword clanking behind me, who could have dreamed that was the fa- nous toast and beauty of the court the celebrated "Marquise de B.?''
 The forest abounded ill game. Cru igny and rarely failed to return from our expeditions with game bags over laden with feathery and furry spells. Many were the legends and stories told in the outlying villages of that al- most impenetrable forest, and it had been my ambition for years to explore it even to its very depth, but had ever been held in check by old Gruigny, who told me, crossing himself the while, the most blood curdling tales relating to & certain werewolf which was said by the peasants to haunt the heart of the grand, mysterious woods.
 Ut is not that Mime. Ia Marquise would fear a wolf, were or not were. " the old man would grumble in his thick mustache, "but it is always preferable to meet a foe, canny or uncanny, in a spot where a gun can be leveled straight at him, and in that tangled under growth, as Mime. la Marquise knows, | there would be no use in aiming at all. " Ou0 aDO0b oh lOuA OOAOAO sunset as 1 was sauntering slowly homeward on horseback along the edge l of the forest, the reins hanging loose on my mare's neck, noticed with sur prise that the four dogs who accompa- nied me had disappeared. I whistled | and called for a time in vain, and final ly concluded that they had lost me run uing after game and would find their way back to the manor house before me, for was still 8 good three miles from home. Before the thought had fairly formed itself in my mind, how ever, @ chorus of frantic, furious barks broke upon my ear, rising and falling in widest excitement
 "What have they unearthed?" won dered. "It can surely be no ordinary game" and as the sound grew nearer and seemed to be scarcely 100 yards dis
 tant I rose in my stirrups and tried tC
 peer through the dense foliage. It wa just then that my mare took fright and
 started on a dead run, not down tho road, but half rearing she swerved al though terrified and turned into 8 mar row forest glade. I snatched at the reini helplessly, for with the bit between hel teeth was powerless, and she tors blindly on as though maddened by fear
 Scarcely had time indeed to bend my head upon the creature's mane and by so doing avoid being stunned, if no