the moment, but she understood it the next, and would have been
reassured if she had not become aware that there was a low sound, a
tramp, tramp, below her. 'Gracious saints! The Templar! Have mercy on
me! Oh! I was too sleepy to pray! Guard me from being driven wild by
fright!' She sat upright, with wide-spread eyes, and, finding that she
herself was in the moonlight, through some opening in the roof, she took
refuge in the darkest corner, though aware as she crouched there,
that if this were indeed the Templar, concealment would be vain, and
remembering suddenly that she was out of reach of the loophole-window.

And therewith there was a tired sound in the tread, as if the Templar
found his weird a very length one; then a long heavy breath, with
something so essentially human in its sound that the fluttering heart
beat more steadily. If reason told her that the living were more
perilous to her than the dead, yet feeling infinitely preferred them! It
might be Nanon Rotrou after all; then how foolish to be crouching there
in a fright! It was rustling through the hay. No-no Nanon; it is a
male figure, it has a long cloak on. Ah! it is in the moonlight-silver
hair--silver beard. The Templar! Fascinated with dismay, yet calling to
mind that no ghost has power unless addressed, she sat still, crossing
herself in silence, but unable to call to mind any prayer or invocation
save a continuous 'Ave Mary,' and trying to restrain her gasping breath,
lest, if he were not the Templar after all, he might discover her
presence.

He moved about, took off his cloak, laid it down near the hay, then his
cap, not a helmet after all, and there was no fiery cross.

He was in the gloom again, and she heard him moving much as though he
were pulling down the hay to form a bed. Did ghosts ever do anything so
sensible? If he were an embodied spirit, would it be possible to
creep past him and escape while he lay asleep? She was almost becoming
familiarized with the presence, and the supernatural terror was passing
off into a consideration of resources, when, behold, he was beginning to
sing. To sing was the very way the ghosts began ere they came to their
devilish outcries. 'Our Lady keep it from bringing frenzy. But hark!
hark!' It was not one of the chants, it was a tune and words heard
in older times of her life; it was the evening hymn, that the little
husband and wife had been wont to sing to the Baron in the Chateau de
Leurre--Marot's ver