sion of such
subjects. I dislike it the more because--"

"You believe?"

"No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions--"

"Since you came here?"

"Yes; not many months ago."

"Here?--in this house?"

"Yes."

"Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was
conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am
choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a
strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are
alike--there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, when
you look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like
mine--that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some
of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I
perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes,
you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with
mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle;
knottings and catchings occur--sudden breaks leave damage in the web.
But these 'impressions,' as you say, with English caution. I, too, have
had my 'impressions.'"

"Monsieur, tell me them."

"I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this
house and garden?"

"I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried
here alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now
bears us."

"And that in former days a nun's ghost used to come and go here."

"Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?"

"Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house
by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I have
indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual
weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other
living being. A nun!"

"Monsieur, I, too, have seen it."

"I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something
that remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is
as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it
has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean--"

Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made
the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point--the
high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughs
on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and
inex