"And what view would the authorities of the Church take, do you think?"
"My individual opinion, countess, is that the whole thing is a conspiracy of the living."
"Of the living!" repented the countess. "And my visions?"
"Those can be explained by psychological means. You are of a susceptible, nervous temperament; your senses are made acquainted with the first portion of the history, your imagination works out the remainder. Your dreams, countess, are hallucinations, nothing else. Visible ghosts do not exist; those who are dead cannot live and move, for the reason that their organic powers are at an end."
The countess shook her head incredulously. To say the truth, she was ill-pleased. She had expected from so high and intellectual an ecclesiastic a very different explanation. If he could only tell us this, it was, indeed, lost trouble to send so far for him.
Herr Samuel was quick enough to read in her face what was passing in her mind, and hastened to apply a radical cure.
"Countess, I know you doubt what I say, because you have firm faith in what your eyes have seen, your ears have heard. You are quite convinced that you yourself have been many times in the haunted vault, and have there seen the spirits of your departed ancestors."
"Only last night," whispered the countess, in an awed voice, "the tumult was fearful. They told me they would come again to-night, that they would expect me."
"And have you promised to go to them?"
"When day comes I shudder from the idea, but at night some strange, mysterious power draws me to the vault; I know all fear will vanish, and I shall not be able to stay away."