“Look you,” said David Preen, as he put up his note-book. “If it be true that Lavinia cannot rest now she’s dead, but shows herself here in the house, I regard it as a pretty sure proof that she was sent out of the world unjustly. But——”
“Then you hold the belief that spirits revisit the earth, monsieur,” interrupted Monsieur Dupuis, “and that revenants are to be seen?”
“I do, sir,” replied David. “We Preens see them. But I cannot stir in this matter, I was about to say, and the man must be left to his conscience.”
And so the conference broke up.
The thing which lay chiefly on hand now was to try to bring health back to Ann Fennel. It was thought well to take her out of the house for a short time, as she had such fancies about it; so Featherston gave up his room at Madame Carimon’s, and Ann was invited to move into it, whilst he joined us at the hotel. I thought her very ill, as we all did. But after her removal there, she recovered her spirits wonderfully, and went out for short walks and laughed and chatted: and when Featherston and David Preen took the boat back to return home, she went to the port to see them steam off.
“Will it be all right with her?” was the last question Mary Carimon whispered to her brother.
“I’m afraid not,” he answered. “A little time will show one way or the other. Depends somewhat, perhaps, upon how that husband of hers allows things to go on. I have done what I can, Mary; I could not do more.”
Does the reader notice that I did not include myself in those who steamed off? For I did not go. Good, genial little Jules Carimon, who was pleased to say he had always liked me much at school, invited me to make a stay at his house, if I did not mind putting up with a small bedroom in the mansarde. I did not mind it at all; it was large enough for me. Nancy was delighted. We had quite a gay time of it; and I made the acquaintance of Major and Mrs. Smith, the Misses Bosanquet and Charley Palliser, who was shortly to quit Sainteville. Charley’s impression of Mrs. Fennel was that she would quit it before he did, but in a different manner.
One fine afternoon, when we were coming off the pier, Nancy was walking between me and Mary Carimon, for she needed the support of two arms if she went far—yes, she was as weak as that—some one called out that the London boat was coming in. Turning round, we saw her gliding smoothly up the harbour. No one in these Anglo-French towns willingly misses that sight, and we drew up on the quay to watch the passengers land. There were only eight or ten of them.
Suddenly Nancy gave a great cry, which bore a sound both of fear and of gladness—“Oh, there’s Edwin!”—and the next moment began to shake her pocket-handkerchief frantically.