my friend. There WAS a
something! And if we regard the young lady, you shall hear. The story of
Mademoiselle de Fontonelles is that she has walked by herself alone in
the garden,--you observe, ALONE--in the moonlight, near the edge of the
wood. You comprehend? The mother and the Cure are in the house,--for the
time effaced! Here at the edge of the wood--though why she continues,
a young demoiselle, to the edge of the wood does not make itself
clear--she beholds her ancestor, as on a pedestal, young, pale, but very
handsome and exalte,--pardon!"

"Nothing," said Dick hurriedly; "go on!"

"She beseeches him why! He says he is lost! She faints away, on the
instant, there--regard me!--ON THE EDGE OF THE WOOD, she says. But her
mother and Monsieur le Cure find her pale, agitated, distressed, ON
THE SOFA IN THE SALON. One is asked to believe that she is transported
through the air--like an angel--by the spirit of Armand de Fontonelles.
Incredible!"

"Well, wot do YOU think?" said Dick sharply.

The cafe proprietor looked around him carefully, and then lowered his
voice significantly:--

"A lover!"

"A what?" said Dick, with a gasp.

"A lover!" repeated Ribaud. "You comprehend! Mademoiselle has
no dot,--the property is nothing,--the brother has everything. A
Mademoiselle de Fontonelles cannot marry out of her class, and the
noblesse are all poor. Mademoiselle is young,--pretty, they say, of
her kind. It is an intolerable life at the old chateau; mademoiselle
consoles herself!"

Monsieur Ribaud never knew how near he was to the white road below the
railing at that particular moment. Luckily, Dick controlled himself, and
wisely, as Monsieur Ribaud's next sentence showed him.

"A romance,--an innocent, foolish liaison, if you like,--but, all the
same, if known of a Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, a compromising, a fatal
entanglement. There you are. Look! for this, then, all this story of
cock and bulls and spirits! Mademoiselle has been discovered with her
lover by some one. This pretty story shall stop their mouths!"

"But wot," said Dick brusquely, "wot if the girl was really skeert
at something she'd seen, and fainted dead away, as she said she
did,--and--and"--he hesitated--"some stranger came along and picked her
up?"

Monsieur Ribaud looked at him pityingly.

"A Mademoiselle de Fontonelle is picked up by her servants, by her
family, but not by the young man in the woods, alone. It is even more
compromising!"