tune comes
upon our family, misfortune also falls on France." He nodded, still
mystified, but interested.

"Did you happen to notice the device carved on the gatepost?" she asked.

"I thought it resembled a fish----"

"Do you understand French, Captain Neeland?"

"Yes."

"Then you know that L'Ombre means 'the shadow'."

"Yes."

"Did you know, also, that there is a fish called 'L'Ombre'?"

"No; I did not know that."

"There is. It looks like a shadow in the water. L'Ombre does not belong
here in Brittany. It is a northern fish of high altitudes where waters are
icy and rapid and always tinctured with melted snow ... would you accord
me a little more patience, Monsieur, if I seem to be garrulous concerning
my own family? It is merely because I want you to understand everything
... _everything_...."

"I am interested," he assured her pleasantly.

"Then--it is a legend--perhaps a superstition in our family--that any
misfortune to us--_and to France_--is always preceded by two invariable
omens. One of these dreaded signs is the abrupt appearance of L'Ombre in
the waters of our moat--" She turned her head slowly and looked down over
the parapet of the bridge.--"The other omen," she continued quietly, "is
that the clocks in our house suddenly go wrong--all striking the same
hour, no matter where the hands point, no matter what time it really
is.... These things have always happened in our family, they say. I,
myself, have never before witnessed them. But during the Vendee the clocks
persisted in striking four times every hour. The Comte d'Aulnes mounted
the scaffold at that hour; the Vicomte died under Charette at Fontenay at
that hour.... L'Ombre appeared in the waters of the moat at four o'clock
one afternoon. And then the clocks went wrong.

"And all this happened again, they say, in 1870. L'Ombre appeared in the
moat. Every clock continued to strike six, day after day for a whole week,
until the battle of Sedan ended.... My grandfather died there with the
light cavalry.... I am so afraid I am taxing your courtesy, Captain
Neeland----"

"I am intensely interested," he repeated, watching the lovely, sensitive
face which pride and dread of misinterpretation had slightly flushed
again.

"It is only to explain--perhaps to justify myself for writing--for asking
that an officer be sent here from Lorient for a few days----"

"I understand, Countess."

"Thank you.... Had it been merely for myself--for my own fe