"No, indeed; that is, if we are to believe your servants; for I confess, for my own part, that I have seen nothing; but your groom declares that the North Tower is visited at night by a phantom; and Vincent, your gardener, claims to have met in the garden, in the evening, a mysterious personage who fled at his approach. That at least is what François, your valet, told me, and he asked me if it were I who had been in the tower and in the garden at night."
Robineau, seeing that Edouard was speaking seriously, could not conceal the emotion which this news caused him.
"What!" he cried, "my servants have seen all this and have said nothing to me about it! You know so many things, Monsieur Férulus—how does it happen that you did not know this?"
"Monseigneur," said Férulus, "I had had wind of these vague rumors; but it seemed to me that it was useless to mention them to you until I was certain that there was something extraordinary in them."
"Why useless, pray? Am I not the owner of this château? Should I not be told first of everything that happens here?"
"Recte dicis, monseigneur; but no thief has entered the château, since nothing has been stolen. In that case it must have been a ghost that they saw. But are there ghosts? That is the question. The Egyptians, the Gauls, the Vandals and the Ostrogoths affirm——"
"Monsieur Férulus, this is not a question of Ostrogoths! I want an explanation of what my servants saw that was extraordinary.—François, tell my groom and my gardener to come here; summon the concierge too, and the whole household, that will be the best way."
François went off to collect his fellows, while Cornélie said to Robineau:
"Really, monsieur, you display an interest, an eagerness, in this matter!—I can well believe that you do not believe in ghosts! Ah! mon Dieu! a cowardly man is a pitiful creature!"
"Certainly, mademoiselle, my courage is well known; my friends can tell you that we passed the night in the mountains, in a wretched hovel, the door of which had no lock."