“The knowledge it brings you is bought too dear, Monsieur; this coming and going by stealth degrades your own dignity.”
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“My dignity!” he cried, laughing; “when did you ever see me trouble my head about my dignity? It is you, Miss Lucy, who are ‘digne.’ How often, in your runescape moneyhigh insular presence, have I taken a pleasure in trampling upon, what you are pleased to call, my dignity; tearing it, scattering it to the winds, in those mad transports you witness with such hauteur, and which I know you think very like the ravings of a third-rate London actor.” runescape gold farming
“Monsieur, I tell you every glance you cast from that lattice is a wrong done to the best part of your own nature. To study the human heart thus, is to banquet secretly and sacrilegiously on Eve’s apples. I wish you were a Protestant.”
Indifferent to the wish, he smoked on. After a space of smiling yet thoughtful silence, he said, rather suddenly–”I have seen other things.”
“What other things?”
Taking the weed from his lips, he threw the remnant amongst the shrubs, where, for a moment, it lay glowing in the gloom.
“Look, at it,” said he: “is not that spark like an eye watching you and me?”
He took a turn down the walk; presently returning, he went on:–”I have seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it.”
The tone was peculiar; my veins thrilled; he saw me shiver.
“Are you afraid? Whether is it of my words or that red jealous eye just winking itself out?”
“I am cold; the night grows dark and late, and the air is changed; it is time to go in.” “It is little past eight, but you shall go in soon. Answer me only this question.”
Yet he paused ere he put it. The garden was truly growing dark; dusk had come on with clouds, and drops of rain began to patter through the trees. I hoped he would feel this, but, for the moment, he seemed too much absorbed to be sensible of the change.
“Mademoiselle, do you Protestants believe in the supernatural?”
“There is a difference of theory and belief on this point amongst Protestants as amongst other sects,” I answered. “Why, Monsieur, do you ask such a question?”
“Why do you shrink and speak so faintly? Are you superstitious?”
“I am constitutionally nervous. I dislike the discussion of such subjects. I dislike it the more because–”
“You believe?”
“No: but it has happened to me to experience impressions–”
“Since you came here?”
“Yes; not many months ago.”
“Here?–in this house?”
“Yes.”
“Bon! I am glad of it. I knew it, somehow; before you told me. I was conscious of rapport between you and myself. You are patient, and I am choleric; you are quiet and pale, and I am tanned and fiery; you are a strict Protestant, and I am a sort of lay Jesuit: but we are alike– there is affinity between us. Do you see it, Mademoiselle, when you look in the glass? Do you observe that your forehead is shaped like mine–that your eyes are cut like mine? Do you hear that you have some of my tones of voice? Do you know that you have many of my looks? I perceive all this, and believe that you were born under my star. Yes, you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle; knottings and catchings occur–sudden breaks leave damage in the web. But these ‘impressions,’ as you say, with English caution. I, too, have had my ‘impressions.’”
“Monsieur, tell me them.”
“I desire no better, and intend no less. You know the legend of this house and garden?”
“I know it. Yes. They say that hundreds of years ago a nun was buried here alive at the foot of this very tree, beneath the ground which now bears us.”
“And that in former days a nun’s ghost used to come and go here.”
“Monsieur, what if it comes and goes here still?”
“Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day. I have indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other living being. A nun!”
“Monsieur, I, too, have seen it.”
“I anticipated that. Whether this nun be flesh and blood, or something that remains when blood is dried, and flesh is wasted, her business is as much with you as with me, probably. Well, I mean to make it out; it has baffled me so far, but I mean to follow up the mystery. I mean–”
Instead of telling what he meant, he raised his head suddenly; I made the same movement in the same instant; we both looked to one point– the high tree shadowing the great berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the first classe. There had been a strange and inexplicable sound from that quarter, as if the arms of that tree had swayed of their own motion, and its weight of foliage had rushed and crushed against the massive trunk. Yes; there scarce stirred a breeze, and that heavy tree was convulsed, whilst the feathery shrubs stood still. For some minutes amongst the wood and leafage a rending and heaving went on. Dark as it was, it seemed to me that something more solid than either night-shadow, or branch-shadow, blackened out of the boles. At last the struggle ceased. What birth succeeded this travail? What Dryad was born of these throes? We watched fixedly. A sudden bell rang in the house–the prayer-bell. Instantly into our alley there came, out of the berceau, an apparition, all black and white. With a sort of angry rush-close, close past our faces–swept swiftly the very NUN herself! Never had I seen her so clearly. She looked tall of stature, and fierce of gesture. As she went, the wind rose sobbing; the rain poured wild and cold; the whole night seemed to feel her.
