It had grown so dark in the little waiting-room that the travellers could hardly make out more than the dim outlines of each other's forms. Now and then a gleam from the wood fire would reveal the handsome face of the Englishman bent tenderly over the golden head of the girl that lay on his breast; and perhaps he would draw closer around her the fur mantle that had slipped a little, or he thought it had ; for it seemed as if he could not take too much care of her, and certainly she looked very fragile, and was very lovely also, and clung to him, as if her whole life depended on him. Indeed, she would not be parted from him, otherwise she might have had a couch to sleep on.
For when the train ran into a snowdrift just above this little village of Marlun, there was only accommodation for nine out of the twelve passengers, and of course the men gave way to the women. There were three of the latter. This young lady might have slept on a couch at the inn ; but she would not, she preferred to sit up all night in the little waiting-room with her lover, and M. Crémard, the jovial advocate, who made merry over the accident, and Lieutenant Mascot, the naval officer. So another traveller had the couch, and Mademoiselle, with the golden hair, was happier wrapped in the fur cloak and folded in her lover's arms. No doubt sometimes in the darkness he kissed her soft lips so near his own. Why not ?
"Still snowing, snowing !" said the advocate, stooping to put a fresh log on the fire; "and how the wind moans round this place ! I would it were any night in the year but Christmas Eve !" " It is not the night one would choose," said the Englishman, Gerald Vereker, "but the snow king takes no account of fasts or festivals."
These three had travelled in the same carriage and had made friends on the journey, and now that they were, in a manner, imprisoned together, they felt as if they had known each other for months.
" It's a night for ghosts to be abroad," said the lieutenant, " if there were such things." " You don't believe in them ?" asked Vereker, quietly. "Parbleu! - who does! - in these days."
" A good many people, interposed M. Crémard. "But the mischief is, one never hears a credu!e story. You read them by the hundred ; but did you ever meet a man you could rely on who had ever seen a ghost ?"
"I have," said Vereker ; " at least, I could not call it a 'ghost,' - (of course the word Vereker, who was speaking French, used was revenant) - but it was an appearance that could not be accounted for by any process of reasoning." "You stir my curiosity," said M. Crémard, bending forward. "Do you speak of an 'appearance' that came within your own experience ?"
For a moment Vereker hesitated ; his hand closed more tightly over the hand of the girl ; he bent his head to hear her whisper, "Tell them, Gerald."
"In a manner, yes!" he answered. "I will tell you the story, if you wish, as it came to me, and if you do not believe my witness, for I am, after all, a stranger to you, you may allow that there is some ground work of possibility in the story to shew that such things might occur."
"Monsieur," said the advocate, "I am no rationalist. It is not so much possibilities that I question, but the evidence we are, in most cases, asked to accept. I am more than curious. I am deeply interested to hear your story, and so, I am sure, is our friend here. The most sceptical love the supernatural."
Indeed M. Mascot had already glanced twice over his shoulder. He laughed a little now, goodnaturedly, and owned that he liked a 'ghost story', though he did not believe in M.M. les revenants."
" Two years ago," Vereker said, his eyes fixed dreamily on the dull wood embers, "the man of whom I spoke, Grahame, was travelling through France on a walking tour. He was young and well off, and strong in health and nerve ; not at all the sort of man to be the prey of fancies or hallucinations. All the currents of his inner life ran strong and deep, but there was no morbidness."
" At Mar-le-bois, a small town in Auvergne -- you may chance to know it, messieurs - Grahame met at the hotel a French family, who were also travelling for pleasure, and making a short stay in the town to explore the country roundabout. There were a father and mother and two daughters - the eldest Louise, the youngest Melanie. Melanie was very beautiful, and had the even greater attraction of charm. For Grahame it was very much like love at first sight. He had the good luck to render the travellers some service in one of their excursions, and thus strengthened an acquaintance begun in the ordinary way at the table d'hôte. He was asked to their salon, joined them in their walks, and found them very agreeable people. That there was any danger for him, or for Melanie in this friendship did not seem to occur to them, until a chance revealed the truth, and then M. le père and Mme. la mère took Grahame to task, gravely, but not unkindly. Melanie, they said, had been from childhood pledged to her cousin. She was, therefore, not free ; they must beg M. Grahame to withdraw himself, and not seek to alienate the affections of Mademoiselle.
"But Grahame, with his English notions, did not quite acquiesce in this mode of disposing of a woman ; he had reason to think, too, that Mlle. Melanie cared a good deal more for him than for M. Victor, and he was far too much in love to yield the point. In fact, he had staked his whole life on this passion for Melanie ; there are men who love in such manner. So he answered that he could not yield up Melanie, unless it were by her own unfettered wish. Mademoiselle, he was told, would not be allowed to see him ; but Grahame was not so easily banished. He contrived to see Melanie alone, and she confessed that her heart belonged to her English lover, and that she would not marry Victor, her cousin. Love in her was stronger than custom and training ; for love's sake she would be brave and true.
"Once more Grahame sought her parents, told them how matters stood, and asked their consent to his marriage with Melanie. He refused, point blank, to give her up. Then, seeing his determination, and fearing, perhaps, some desperate move on his part - ces Anglais! you never feel sure what they will do ! - they began to temporise. Melanie, they said, was too young to marry ; she was far from strong - this last was true - and they could not consent to any formal engagement at present. Grahame must consent to at least a year's separation from Melanie; if at the end of that time she still loved him, her happiness should outweigh her parents' dearest wishes. Love that could not stand this test had no wear in it.
"This was fair enough, and Grahame could not well help assenting to it; for in this country one can't so easily run off with a young lady. Her marriage would not be legal without her guardian's consent. He might see Mlle. Melanie once more alone ; perhaps the good people knew that he would manage to do this anyhow.
"Melanie clung to her lover's heart in bitter grief, but nothing, she said, should shake her Faith in him. Happen what might she would be true to him. They must not correspond, and this would make the year of probation very hard to bear; worse even for Grahame than f0r Melanie, for he well knew that her friends would do their best to influence the girl their own way, and she was very young to be brought under such pressure, with no one present to help her. Would she be able to stand alone?
" 'I shall always be with you,' she said, as her lover held her to his heart. 'Whatever you may hear believe nothing - nothing, hut that I am true to you'. And so they parted.
"Grahame, having little heart for further travel, returned to England and tried to occupy himself in some literary work upon which he was engaged but he got on very slowly. An absorbing passion unfits the mind for work, and Grahame was not obliged to labour, he had ample means to live without it.
"His mother was disappointed when she heard his story. She had set her heart on his marrying a young relative of her own - a girl for whom Grahame had some affection, but would never have cared for as a lover. He was sorry to grieve his mother, whom he loved devoutly, but the die was cast. For him there was only Melanie.
"So six months passed, and then a letter came to Grahame. It was dated from a village in Bretagne, and was from Melanie's mother. The girl had died two days before the date of the letter. She had been failing for some time (Grahame knew she was not strong), but nothing serious was anticipated, and she was brought to this place for her health. Here she one day went out with her sister Louise. They missed their way, and were overtaken by darkness. Being frightened, they hurried home, and Melanie, when she came in, fainted dead away, and she died the same night without ever recovering consciousness.
"Grahame was at first simply stunned by this terrible news. He had no reason to doubt its truth, and yet he could not believe it, and he clung desperately to the wild hope of there being some deception. In any case he must, of course, see Melanie's parents, hear all that there was to hear, and see her grave. He crossed at once and travelled, without resting for an hour, down to the village. The parents and sister Louise were still there. They were dressed in deep mourning, and were overwhelmed with grief; but they received Grahame kindly and did not hide from him the fact that Melanie had never swerved in her allegiance to him.
Madame pave him many details about the last days of her life, and bestowed upon him a crucifix she used to wear. She was, of course, buried. Louise, weeping bitterly, took him to her newly made grave, and left him there alone with his dead. The sexton happened to pass while he stood by the grave, and Grahame asked the man if he knew who was buried there. Surely, he replied, it was a young girl, Mllc. Melanie - - -, he could not remember the surname. That was not strange. Melanie's surname was not one to dwell readily in the memory of an illiterate peasant.
"As for Grahame, he left his own life in that grave. Do you smile, Messieurs ? I think not, though I cannot see your faces. Frenchmen would understand such a love as his. For months he wandered from place to place, restless, heartbroken ; but all places were alike. At length he returned to England.
" By and by his mother urged him to try and rouse himself - not to forget the past, but to make a peaceful if not a happy future. At first he shrank in horror from the prospect indicated, for his mother hoped still to see the fulfilment of her wish. Then came the thought that he was perhaps selfish. If his life was valueless to him, why not at least devote it to one who had never spared herself for his sake?
" 'Give me time mother,' he said to her one night before they separated, ' I will try to please you if I can ; but I must have time to think.'
" The y had been sitting by the fire - it was late November - and on a small table in the centre of the room stood a shaded lamp. Grahame, after opening the door for his mother to pass out, closed it again, and, returning to the hearth. sat down, striving to bring his mind to the point of sealing his fate. What mattered it what became of him now ? His cousin, his mother told him, was fond of him ; well, if she were satisfied with kindness and duty - he could give her no more - why not end the struggle, and make his mother happy?
" He was so seated that the lamp was visible to him, though be was not looking at it. He raised his head suddenly with a violent start. He was conscious of something having flashed between him and the lamp, obscuring the light for a second, just as would have happened if a person had passed him ; at the same instant there was a faint rustle, like the frou-frou of a woman's garment.
"That, though he trembled and grew white, his thought should leap at once to Melanie was only natural. When was she ever absent from his heart ? But after a minute or two he rallied a bit, and pulled himself together; though a not unimaginative man, as I told you, he was not superstitious. His nerves, he told himself, were not what they used to be; he was in an excited state to-night; it was easy to fancy anything; and there was clearly no one in the room but himself.
"Was there not! Even as he assured himself that he was alone, he had an impression, amounting to conviction, that he was alone no longer. And yet it was not fear that he felt, but a tremulous awe, a wonderful sense of being in the presence of his lost love, Melanie. Note that he was not dreaming, or in any state of unconsciousness. He had a curiously distinct knowledge of the commonplace surroundings of everyday life - the table, the lamp, the open book lying on a chair near; in the background the bookcase and a cabinet with an old-fashioned jug standing on it. And into this room something or someone had come, and was with him now.
"He did not say her name aloud, but he spoke it in his heart - to her, as to a living being, and his hand stole to her crucifix that he always wore on his breast. Oh ! if he could see her - only see her!
"Why could he not see her when he knew where she stood - yonder, in the shadows - standing quite still, with sweet, wistful eyes seeking his, and clasped hands outstretched towards him. For what should she plead to him? Was it not for him to ask her sinless prayers ? What could he do for her now? Would not she, freed from the storm and stress of earthly passion, know that he did well to make his life a sacrifice, since sacrifice was all that he could offer?
"By and by the sense of this unseen presence passed away, Grahame was alone again ; but he was shaken, bewildered. His thoughts refused to dwell on anything but Melanie; it was as if the months had been rolled back, and he stood again by her newly made grave.
"With daylight, and the recurrence of daily routine, some of the exalted feeling passed away ; but the man's whole being was shaken, and he remained in a strangely excited state. Three days went by. Grahame had said nothing to his mother of his experience that night; but on the fourth day he made a stern effort to recover his balance, to persuade himself that he had been only dreaming, or under the influence of morbid feeling : he must brace himself for the battle that was still before him. In this frame of mind he went out that afternoon into the park ; the fresh air and movement would blow away some of the cobwebs from his brain. The dusk was falling, and Kensington Gardens, in which he presently found himself, were almost deserted. Walking among the leafless trees be might have been fifty miles away from London, but for the continuous roar of the streets which reached him.
"He went on slowly, his eyes bent on the ground, but a faint rustle, like the sound of a woman's dress lightly sweeping the dead leaves as its wearer walked, made him raise his eyes to the direction whence the sound came, which was a few feet to the right, but on a line with him. He was singularly startled to see a female form clothed entirely in white, with a hood or wimple drawn over the head, a long white veil flowing behind. It was now too dark to make out any details, but Grahame's impression was that the garments were such as are worn by novices in a convent. Instantaneously he stopped, with an unaccountable sense of recognition, with a feeling that what he beheld was no living woman ; how, indeed, should a novice, thus apparelled, be abroad, and at such an hour?
"As he stopped, the figure paused also, turned, and with outstretched imploring hands came close to him. It was Melanie ! her dark eyes full of a passionate entreaty, her lips parted as if to speak. But her dress, he could see clearly now, was that of a novice. So close she came to him, so lifelike did she appear, that, forgetting everything, he actually believed he saw his lost love in the flesh, and with a broken cry of joy he stretched out his arms to enfold her. But even as that cry left his lips, the spirit or vision was gone, and Grahame fell senseless among the wintry leaves.
" He was found by some passers-by, and taken home in a semi-conscious state ; but there he soon recovered ; and now there came to him a new idea, at once terrible and alluring. That he had seen Melanie this evening there could be no doubt. The circumstances forbade all hypothesis of dreaming. A man cannot sleep walking upright in the open air; vision or spirit --what matter? Was it vision of the dead, or of the living? That Melanie should appear to him, whether in vision vouchsafed or projected from his inner consciousness, or in the spirit, dressed as he had known her, or in the dread cerements of the grave, he could understand ; but whence the garb of the religieuse? No thought in his mind or in hers had ever connected her with the monastic life ; her parents intended her for the bride of her cousin Victor, not the bride of Heaven. Yet she came to her lover in the robes of a novice, with pleading hands and eyes, and lips that strove to utter the words of impassioned appeal.
"' My God! ' Grahame cried aloud. 'Have I been most miserably deceived ? Is all this story of her death a lie ? Is my darling living— walled up in a cruel prison until she shall yield to the tyrants who keep her there ? And has her spirit come to me her lover, to save her?' Her parting words to him rang back on his soul. ' I shall always be with you. Whatever you may hear, believe nothing, nothing but that I am true to you.
"But the parents had not said Melanie was false to him; they had lulled his perceptions to sleep by telling him she was still faithful. They told him she was dead - shewed him her grave. Yes; but no stone recorded her name, she was only a few hours buried. The old sexton could only remember the Christian name of the dead girl, and Melanie is no such uncommon name in France. In the light of the new conviction that filled his mind, everything that at the time had appeared natural now seemed suspicious. How was it he had been blinded? Though in truth the fraud, if fraud there was, had been very cleverly worked out.
" To his mother Grahame nothing but that he must leave England at once. She had no belief at all in the supernatural, and the relation of his strange experiences would have appeared to her evidence of mental derangement. He went straight to the village in which Melanie had died; it was easy for him to find the grave, for he had taken special note of its position. It was still without a headstone - a thing strange in itself, for persons in the position of Melanie's parents would have certainly erected a memorial long ago. He sought the cure´, and asked to see the register of the burials on such a date. There was only one, Melanie Anne Cercueillière, fifteen years old, a peasant girl, who had died of rapid decline.
" The story, then, of Melanie's death was a lie, and she was living.
" In the first blinding rush of joy at this conviction Grahame had nearly betrayed himself to the curé but he remembered himself in time, and, mastering his emotion, presently inquired, with a not too eager interest, after a family named so and so, who were at one time staying there. The eldest was very handsome - the younger - was she not destined tor the convent? The cure´ did not know ; he had heard so ; he fancied Mlle. took the veil at Notre Dame de Bon Secours, at Ylâtre, about ten leagues from here.
"To Ylâtre Grahame went; but not in his own person. He had already provided himself with the disguise of a friar, and in this dress he took his way to Ylâtre. He was a master of the French language, though not of the Breton dialect, but he was 'an old monk' from near Angoul&e&;me. It was easy enough to deceive these simple people.
" At the outer gate of the Convent of the Bon Secours he knocked one bitter evening - it was within a week of Christmas - and he was faint for want of food. The kind and pious portress took him into her large room ; an old man, and a holy p&egravc;rc who should fear to give him entrance?
" By-and-by, when the old man was somewhat revived, he entered into conversation with the soeur converse, who, like most of her kind, was a rare gossip. It was not difficult to worm out of her ali the news of the convent, including that of pretty Soeur Agnès,the new novice, who was stubborn, and not at all pious ; and in truth, on dit, said the portress, that her parents placed her here because she would not marry her cousin, M. Victor; and in truth, that was foolish, for which worldly sentiment the holy friar duly rebuked the portress.
" Melanie was here, faithful to her English lover! How to reach her? If secret means failed, he must try open ones; but secret means were the safest. The chapel of the convent was in the garden, some three hundred yards from the convent itself; and skilful cross-questioning of the portress, and observations taken at night, apprised Grahame of the wing in which the cells of the novices were placed.
" That night - it was dry and frosty - he scaled the convent wall, and for more than two hours was busy piling up faggots and broken branches of trees behind the chapel, close to the trees and shrubs that grew there.
" Within one hour, a bright blaze shot up high above the convent walls and the roof of the chapel, and a peasant was ringing the great bell and calling out, 'Fire ! Fire !'
" In two minutes the convent was like a disturbed ant-hill; the nuns, some half dressed, some wholly dressed, were rushing out to their beloved chapel; peasants from the village were tearing up to assist in extinguishing the flames. No one noticed the old monk, who wore a layman's dress under his frock. A moment's scrutiny shewed him that the figure he sought was not among the nuns. He sped towards the convent ; as he did so, a girl's figure, in dark garb, shot past him towards the great gates. It was Melanie ! Not spirit nor vision, but Melanie herself' She was profiting by the confusion to make her escape! He was wise enough to master the mad impulse to speak to her then. He followed her; the night was dark ; she gained the open road and fled on, he following. As he followed he flung away his disguise; and when he judged it safe, with a few strides he gained her side. She turned, would have cried out in terror, but his arm was round her, his hand on her mouth. 'Melanie!' he said, 'Melanie, it is I, Grahame, your lover !' "
The narrator paused - his voice trembled. "Messieurs," he said, after a moment's silence, "it is hard to speak of that meeting. Can you not divine what it was to him to hold his love to his heart, living, breathing, warm with passionate life, whom he had wept for as among the dead? And she - brave girl! - she did not faint. Dizzy with joy, she yet remembered the peril, and bore up. But her first articulate words to her lover were these - 'Ah! you have come, you have come ! I came to you ; did you not see me that day among the trees?'
"She explained afterwards that she had on two occasions - the dates and hours of which tallied exactly with Grahame's experiences - had impressions of being with her lover, imploring him to come to her, for she was not dead, but living. She felt that he was 'passing out of her life' - that was her expression. She did not know what falsehood her parents had told her lover. On the first occasion she could only see that Grahame was in a room ; she saw him as a dim outline ; she felt that he was conscious of her presence, hut knew that he could not see her. In the second instance all was distinct. She described the place, the wintry trees, the path winding among them. She saw her lover walking with bended head. W hen he stopped, she turned to him, she tried to speak, but could not. He sought to embrace her, and then the whole scene was gone; but there remained with her a strange conviction that he would come to her, and save her
"On neither of these occasions was Melanie asleep. The first time she was lying in her cot, broad awake, unable to sleep. She seemed to have, as it were, two personalities. She was conscious of lying on her cot, of her surroundings ; yet she - some part of herself - was away in England, in the firelit room with Grahame. On the second occasion she was kneeling in the chapel at vespers. All the time that her spirit was absent she knew what was going on in the chapel : she heard the nuns chanting ; she heard the novice beside her muttering her 'Ave Maria, gratia plena' and 'Paternoster,' as she told her beads ; yet she was away among the trees, in the dark, by her lover's side ; she heard even the soft rustle of her garments among the dead leaves.
"All this is very strange, Messieurs. I tell it as it was told me. I have only suppressed some names because - voyez vous - Messieurs, Grahame and his bride are not jet beyond capture, and in this country, as I said, there is danger in such a proceeding. Perhaps you do not believe these things took place; hut if you do, how do you explain them?"
There was a short silence. The fire had sunk almost to blackness. .So intense had been the interest of narrator and listeners in the singular narrative, that none of the three had thought of putting on more fuel. M. Crémard spoke first in a kind of hushed voice.
"Monsieur," he said, "I must thank you for myself very, very much. I do not doubt that what you have related is true in every particular. I say frankly that it is most wonderful. I do not know that it needs explanation ; in reason there is none. I think even M. Mascot's scepticism must be shaken ! "
" Parbleu, yes," said the naval officer, stooping to replenish the fire, "and by Heaven, this - this - friend of yours, M. Vereker, deserves his bride. I hope they will have a happy Christmas, eh! Crémard! "
" Many, many of them !" said the advocate, a little huskily. " Monsieur '' - to Vereker with a roguish smile, which a glow from the fire displayed to full advantage - " I trust we may tomorrow all drink the health of M. Gerald Vereker and his bride Melanie."
Melanie hid her face, half laughing, but trembling, too, on her lover's breast. He stretched out his hand to be grasped cordially in turn by the two Frenchmen.
" Messieurs," he said, " you are men of honour. I know that my story is safe with you. Tomorrow all the world may know it. We shall be in England - beyond all danger."
Last Christmas M. Crémard was roasting chestnuts over the fire for Gerald Vereker's little son, and M. Mascot was gallantly performing a like office for lovely Melanie Vereker; but when some of the young people clustered about the Yule log called upon the naval officer for a " yarn " he shook his head.
" Ask M. Vereker," said he, "he has a stranger tale than I could tell you, and his is true," he added, thoughtfully.
"Oh ! Captain Mascot," said little Gerald, climbing on the seaman s knee, "do you believe in ghosts ? "
" I believe, my boy," said he, laying his hand on the child's sunny locks, "that the spirit may span time and distance, and those who are divided in bodily presence: may yet see each other face to face. But lam speaking my own thoughts. He smiled: "you cannot understand; how should you ? When you are older ask father to tell you his yarn."
And as the boy turned eagerly to his father, Gerald drew his little son within his arm, and his free hand stole into his wife's. Is there not a special union of soul between those who have together lifted the veil that shrouds the unseen and known as a vivid truth the mystery of the supernatural ?
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