The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pledged to the Dead, by Seabury Quinn

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Title: Pledged to the Dead

Author: Seabury Quinn

Release Date: May 24, 2010 [EBook #32514]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Weird Tales October 1937. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.

[Illustration: "Good-bye for eternity!" we heard her sob.]

Pledged to the Dead

By SEABURY QUINN

_A tale of a lover who was pledged to a sweetheart who had
been in her grave for more than a century, and of the
striking death that menaced him--a story of Jules de
Grandin_

* * * * *

The autumn dusk had stained the sky with shadows and orange oblongs
traced the windows in my neighbors' homes as Jules de Grandin and I
sat sipping kaiserschmarrn and coffee in the study after dinner. "_Mon
Dieu_," the little Frenchman sighed, "I have the _mal du pays_, my
friend. The little children run and play along the roadways at Saint
Cloud, and on the Ile de France the pastry cooks set up their booths.
_Corbleu_, it takes the strength of character not to stop and buy
those cakes of so much taste and fancy! The Napoleons, they are crisp
and fragile as a coquette's promise, the eclairs filled with cool,
sweet cream, the cream-puffs all aglow with cherries. Just to see them
is to love life better. They----"

The shrilling of the door-bell startled me. The pressure on the button
must have been that of one who leant against it. "Doctor Trowbridge; I
must see him right away!" a woman's voice demanded as Nora McGinnis,
my household factotum, grudgingly responded to the hail.

"Th' docthor's offiss hours is over, ma'am," Nora answered frigidly.
"Ha'f past nine ter eleven in th' marnin', an' two ter four in th'
afthernoon is wh