I tried
to persuade myself that my eyes had been deceived. Truly, although I
have been a thousand times in places of much greater danger, I do not
think I have ever known greater excitement, or conditions when a man
could be more readily deceived than that midnight in the market-place
of Prague. I said this to myself many times. It is strange how a man
will argue with himself to believe a thing which he can not believe,
and will silence, without convincing, himself.

I was revolving these things in my mind one night, about a week
afterward, on my way alone through the narrow, dark unlighted
streets, lying black in the shadows of the overhanging houses. And
then there passed across my path, a figure in a ragged black cloak--a
figure with the face of Gaston Cheverny. I followed him, but I seemed
to be following a ghost; for in the tangle of streets and lanes, he
was lost to me. I spent two full hours hunting this shade; but had it
been actually a ghost it could not have disappeared more completely.

I went to Count Saxe's quarters. It was then near midnight, and Count
Saxe had gone to bed; but on the table, wide open, with some other
letters for me to read, was a letter from Gaston Cheverny to Count
Saxe, dated the very day before the capture of Prague.

So I was deceived. He was not and never had been in Prague. I had been
deceived by some chance resemblance. It was upon events like these
that Madame Riano based her absurd belief in second sight.

But let it not appear that I am a man easily deluded when I declare
that from the hour I saw the man I took for Gaston Cheverny in the
burning house at Prague, I knew that Francezka was in sore distress,
and even in need of her poor Babache. Something within me was ever
calling--calling, in Francezka's name--"Come to me!"

There are degrees in these superstitions of the heart. Sometimes they
usurp the scepter of the brain. Then, indeed, are they dangerous and
foolish. Again, it is known to be only the cry of the heart; and the
poor, tormented heart waits patiently upon its master, the brain. So
it was with me. Deep as was my yearning to see Francezka, I said no
word of it to the most indulgent of masters, until the time was ripe
that I might go. Francezka herself was governed by the law of common
sense; she would not wish me to come to her when it was against my
duty. So I fulfilled all my duty, in spite of the burden of the
spirit--the strange, almost irresistible call fo