The Château de Saluce had not been lived in for years—ever since my mother's death, in fact. But it had been well cared for. Fires had been lit every fortnight or so to air the rooms during the autumn and winter; every room had been left in exactly the same state it was in at my mother's death, and the gardens had been tended and looked after as though the family were in residence.
"When you marry," said my guardian, "it will make a very nice present for your wife. Let it! Good God, Patrique, are we shopkeepers?"
"Here's the key," said I, coming back to Eloise, who had waited for me at the angle of the drawbridge. She was standing with her elbow on the drawbridge rail, and her eyes fixed on the water. She seemed paler than when I had left her; and when I touched her arm she drew her gaze away from the water lingeringly, as if fascinated by something she had seen there.
"Toto," said Eloise, "are there fish in the moat?"
"I never hear of any. Why?"
"I saw something white and flat," said Eloise, "deep down. I first thought it was a flat-fish, then it looked like a ball of mist in the water deep down, and then it looked like a—a face."
"A face!" said I, laughing, and looking over the bridge-rail and down into the water.
"I know it was only fancy," said Eloise. "Perhaps I went asleep for a second and dreamed it. It felt like a dream, and I felt just as a person feels wakened up from sleep when you touched me on the arm just now. It was a man's face, pale, and—and—— Ah, well, it was perhaps only my imagination!"
She shivered, and took my arm; and I led her along a by-path that took us to the carriage drive and the front door of the château.