Von Gaden started. “’Tis strange!” he muttered; “I was thinking of him a moment since. Her young face brought back the memory of that awful scene. And you have seen him, fellow?”
He regarded the dwarf with a look of fierce interrogation, as if to read his very soul; but Homyak showed no desire to conceal anything; he was shaking with genuine terror.
“I saw his spirit,” he said, his teeth chattering, “and there was the scar—the wound you sewed up. I saw him, and he mocked me!”
“Where was he?” asked the physician, while I marveled at his patience with the dwarf’s vagaries.
“He came from this direction,” said Homyak, wildly, “and he was gaunt and thin, and his hair was white.”
Von Gaden laughed. “You dream, Homyak,” he said; “ghosts do not age.”
I was growing impatient, and made a movement to leave them; but Von Gaden laid his hand on my arm.
“A moment, M. de Brousson,” he said; and then he took the dwarf aside, and speaking to him sternly and briefly, despatched him in the direction of the palace. When he rejoined me I saw that the gloom on his face had deepened rather than disappeared.
“If you can walk home with me, M. le Vicomte,” he said gravely, “I would gladly talk a little with you. These are uncertain times, and a man must needs keep his house in order and his affairs ready, lest he be unexpectedly taken away. There is a matter that has often weighed upon my mind that I would gladly confide to a disinterested man who could bear witness in the hour of need.”
Now, I was on the horns of a dilemma. The doctor had been more than obliging to me when I lay sore smitten with fever, and I could not easily deny him, yet I was fretting to be off on my errand. However, I resigned myself to the circumstances, and with some reluctance turned to accompany him. Then a sudden thought prompted me to question my companion.