"Thank you," Gervase said. "Well! in going through this book--the one of 1854--I have come upon a name so familiar to me, the name of Gervase Occleve, that----"
But before he could finish his sentence the landlord had jumped up from his chair, and was speaking rapidly while he gesticulated in a thorough French fashion.
"C'est ça, mon Dieu, mais oui!" he began. "Occleve--of course! That is the face. Sir, Milor! I salute you! When you entered my house yesterday, I said to myself, 'But where, mon Dieu, but where have I seen him? Or is it but the spirit of some dead one looking at me out of his eyes?' And now that you mention to me the name of Occleve, then in a moment he comes back to me and I see him once again. Ah! ma foi, Milor! but when I regard you, then in verity he returns to me, and I recall him as he used to sit in this very room--parbleu! in that very chair in which you now sit."
The young men had both stared at him with some amazement as he spoke hurriedly and excitedly, repeating himself in his earnestness, and now as he ceased, Gervase said:
"Do I understand you to say, then, that I bear such a likeness to this man, whose name is inscribed here, as to recall him vividly to you?" "Mais, sans doute! you are his son! It must be so. There is only one thing that I do not comprehend. You bear a different name."
"He became Lord Penlyn later in life, and at his death that title came to me."
"Bien compris! And so he is dead! He can scarcely have lived the full space of man's years. And Madame your mother? She is well?"
For a moment the young man hesitated. Then he said: "She is dead too."
"Pauvre dame," the landlord said, and as he spoke it seemed as though he was talking to himself. "She was bright and happy in those days so far off, bright and happy once; and she, too, is gone. And I, who was older than either of them, am left! But, Lord Penlyn," he said, readdressing himself to his guest, "you look younger than your years. It is thirty years since you used to run about those sands outside and play; I have carried you to them often----"
"You carried me to those sands thirty years ago! Why, I was not----"