Gilbert turned pale and clasped his hand to his heart as though to staunch a re-opening wound. "But this is all a dream and I am almost as crazed as you."
"It may be all a dream," said the youth with pensive eye, "but the reality of the dream exists. I have seen the lady alive, in a magnificent equipage drawn by four horses, in Satory Woods near Versailles, on the last holiday when we were taken out there. I nearly swooned on seeing her, I do not know why. For she could not be my mother, who is dead, and she is the same as the vision."
He remarked the giddiness of his father who ran his hand over his brow, and he was frightened by his white face.
"I see I am wrong to tell you such nonsense," he said.
"Oh, no, speak all you can on the subject and we shall try to cure you," responded the doctor.
"Why? I am born to musing: it takes up half my time. I love this ghost though it avoids me and seems sometimes to repulse me. Do not expel it: I should else be all alone when you are on your travels or return to America."
"I hope we shall not part," he said to his boy whom he embraced: "for I want to take you on my journeys."
"Was my mother fair?" inquired the youth.
"Very," was answered in the doctor's stifled voice.
"And did she love you as much as I do?" continued the child.