Again he sank restfully into his pillows.
I waited for a moment by the library fire before wrapping myself securely against the cold. The wind roared in merciless gusts through the trees. The old house cracked and moaned as if shaken to the foundation by the blast. Just before stepping out into the night, I glanced through the half-open door at the children's little St. Jacques. He himself was sleeping as peacefully as a child.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"I would talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who lived before the god of love was born."
Two days later we were seated in the firelight near the bed of Monsieur Picot. He had rallied some, though I was unable to say whether or not it was merely temporarily. The large old room was played upon by the flickering flame and a thousand ghostly shadows stole about the furniture and hid in the darkest corners. The bright, feverish face of the Abbé could be seen among the pillows. The rest of the bed was hidden by the half-drawn curtains. Nance sat upon a stool and gazed at the embers, beneath the andirons, from time to time lifting her face, aglow with interest. My patient, whom I cautioned to become less animated for his nerves' sake, was speaking. For many minutes he had been telling us of some of the strange and wonderful happenings within his old house, so long a mystery for the children of Oldmeadow.
"Now as for ghosts," said he whimsically, "it is a matter of choice. Frankly I rather like them, Mademoiselle.... Now there is the old lover's ghost of the banquet hall in the west wing. He's such a gentle, tobacco-loving shade. I assure you he is fully as harmless as a spinster. He is almost domesticated. A little timid, however, and a bit suspicious of you.... He—comes—every—Christmas—eve," he slowly and solemnly reiterated, with a twinkle in his eye, "and sits and dreams over the empty banquet table. The feast is ended. The spoils strew the table. Among the empty glasses and forgotten viands lies a broken fan. Here my gentle friend is to be found. He is a solemn spook.... Perhaps it is his liver, Monsieur Doctor.... Thus he sits with bowed head before the wreck of tasted pleasures, and seems to dream of another day. You may enter as quietly as you please, yet, with a sort of hurt expression about him, as if, though quite unconsciously, yet surely, you had gently broken his heart, he fades away like the smoke. This look of reproach upon his face, doubtless because of his knowledge of your innocent intentions, is tempered by plainly written forgiveness. When he is gone you catch the faint odor of tobacco, with the still more subtle perfume of a handkerchief, as if a lady had at least been present in his dreams."
"I think I should love him," ventured Nance, speaking softly.
"I hope you will, my daughter," was the Abbé's reply.... Then he continued: