“How many?” She dropped her voice a little. “I’ve always wondered—”
I looked at her with surprise: I had supposed the place to be familiar to her. “Have you never been to Kerfol?” I asked.
“Oh, yes: often. But never on that day.”
“What day?”
“I’d quite forgotten—and so had Hervé, I’m sure. If we’d remembered, we never should have sent you to-day—but then, after all, one doesn’t half believe that sort of thing, does one?”
“What sort of thing?” I asked, involuntarily sinking my voice to the level of hers. Inwardly I was thinking: “I knew there was something....”
Madame de Lanrivain cleared her throat and produced a reassuring smile. “Didn’t Hervé tell you the story of Kerfol? An ancestor of his was mixed up in it. You know every Breton house has its ghost-story; and some of them are rather unpleasant.”
“Yes—but those dogs?”
“Well, those dogs are the ghosts of Kerfol. At least, the peasants say there’s one day in the year when a lot of dogs appear there; and that day the keeper and his daughter go off to Morlaix and get drunk. The women in Brittany drink dreadfully.” She stooped to match a silk; then she lifted her charming inquisitive Parisian face. “Did you really see a lot of dogs? There isn’t one at Kerfol.” she said.