Two persons were waiting for Roland’s return; one in anguish1, the other with impatience2. These two persons were Amélie and Sir John. Neither of them had slept for an instant. Amélie displayed her anguish only by the sound of her door, which was furtively3 closed as Roland came up the staircase. Roland heard the sound. He had not the courage to pass before her door without reassuring4 her.
“Be easy, Amélie, I am here,” he said. It did not occur to him that his sister might be anxious for any one but him.
Amélie darted5 from her room in her night-dress. It was easy to see from her pallor and the dark circles which spread nearly to the middle of her cheeks that she had not closed her eyes all night.
“Has nothing happened to you, Roland?” she cried, clasping her brother in her arms and feeling him over anxiously.
“Nothing.”
“Nor to any one else?”
“No.”
“And you saw nothing?”
“I didn’t say that,” answered Roland.
“Good God! What did you see?”
“I’ll tell that to you later. Meantime, there is no one either killed or wounded.”
“Ah! I breathe again!”
“Now, let me give you a bit of advice, little sister. Go to bed and sleep, if you can, till breakfast. I am going to do the same thing, and can assure you I won’t need any rocking. Good-night, or rather good-morning.”
Roland kissed his sister tenderly. Then affecting to whistle a hunting-air carelessly, he ran up the next flight of steps. Sir John was frankly6 waiting for him in the hall. He went straight to the young man.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, I didn’t roll my stone entirely7 for nothing.”
“Did you see any ghosts?”
“At any rate I saw something that resembled one very closely.”
“Come, tell me all about it.”
“I see you won’t be able to sleep, or at best only fitfully, if I don’t. Here’s what happened, in a nutshell.”
And Roland gave him a minute account of the night’s adventure.
“Excellent,” said Sir John, when Roland had finished. “I hope you have left something for me to do.”
“I am even afraid,” answered Roland, “that I have left you the hardest part.”
Then, as Sir John went over each detail, asking many questions about the localities, he said:
“Listen, Sir John. We will pay the Chartreuse a visit in broad daylight after breakfast, which will not interfere8 in the least with your night-watch. On the contrary, it will acquaint you with the localities. Only you must tell no one.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Sir John, “do I look like a gabbler?”
“No, that’s true,” cried Roland laughing, “you are not a gabbler, but I am a ninny.” So saying, he entered his bedchamber.
After breakfast the two young men sauntered down the slopes of the garden, as if to take a walk along the banks of the Reissouse. Then they bore to the left, swung up the hill for about forty paces, struck into the highroad, and crossed the woods, till they reached the convent wall at the very place where Roland had climbed over it on the preceding night.
“My lord,” said Roland, “this is the way.”
“Very well,” replied Sir John, “let us take it.”
Slowly, with a wonderful strength of wrist, which betokened9 a man well trained in gymnastics, the Englishman seized the coping of the wall, swung himself to the top, and dropped down on the other side. Roland followed with the rapidity of one who is not achieving a feat10 for the first time. They were both on the other side, where the desertion and desolation were more visible by night than by day. The grass was growing knee high in the paths; the espaliers were tangled11 with vines so thick that the grapes could not ripen12 in the shadow of the leaves. The wall had given way in several places, and ivy13, the parasite14 rather than the friend of ruins, was spreading everywhere.
As for the trees in the open space, plums, peaches and apricots, they had grown with the freedom of the oaks and beeches15 in the forest, whose breadth and thickness they seemed to envy. The sap, completely absorbed by the branches which were many and vigorous, produced but little fruit, and that imperfect. By the rustle16 of the tall grass, Sir John and Roland divined that the lizards17, those crawling offsprings of solitude18, had established their domicile there, from which they fled in amazement19 at this disturbance20.
Roland led his friend straight to the door between the orchard21 and the cloister22, but before entering he glanced at the clock. That clock, which went at night, was stopped in the day time. From the cloister he passed into the refectory. There the daylight showed under their true aspect the various objects which the darkness had clothed with such fantastic forms the night before. Roland showed Sir John the overturned stools, the table marked by the blow of the pistol, the door by which the phantom23 had entered. Accompanied by the Englishman, he followed the path he had taken in pursuit of the spectre. He recognized the obstacles which had hindered him, and noted24 how easily one who knew the locality might cross or avoid them.
At the spot where he had fired, he found the wad, but he looked in vain for the bullet. The arrangement of the passage, which ran slanting25, made it impossible for the bullet, if its marks were not on the walls, to have missed the ghost. And yet if the ghost were hit, supposing it to be a solid body, how came it to remain erect26? How had it escaped being wounded, and if wounded, why were there no bloodstains on the ground? And there was no trace of either blood or ball.
Sir John was almost ready to admit that his friend had had to do with a veritable ghost.
“Some one came after me,” said Roland, “and picked up the ball.”
“But if you fired at a man, why didn’t the ball go into him?”
“Oh! that’s easily explained. The man wore a coat of mail under his shroud27.”
That was possible, but, nevertheless, Sir John shook his head dubiously28. He preferred to believe in a supernatural occurrence; it gave him less trouble.
Roland and he continued their investigations29. They reached the end of the passage which opened on the furthest extremity30 of the orchard. It was there that Roland had seen his spectre for an instant as it ............