tter to him.

"Hello!" he exclaimed, partly astonished, partly uneasy; "is that you,
Amelie?"

"Yes, it is I," she said. Then, going close to her brother, and letting
him kiss her forehead, she added in a supplicating voice: "You won't go,
will you, dear Roland?"

"Go where?" asked Roland.

"To the Chartreuse."

"Good! Who told you that?"

"Oh! for one who knows, how difficult it is to guess!"

"And why don't you want me to go to the Chartreuse?"

"I'm afraid something might happen to you."

"What! So you believe in ghosts, do you?" he asked, looking fixedly into
Amelie's eyes.

Amelie lowered her glance, and Roland felt his sister's hand tremble in
his.

"Come," said Roland; "Amelie, at least the one I used to know, General
de Montrevel's daughter and Roland's sister, is too intelligent to yield
to these vulgar terrors. It's impossible that you can believe these
tales of apparitions, chains, flames, spectres, and phantoms."

"If I did believe them, Roland, I should not be so alarmed. If ghosts do
exist, they must be souls without bodies, and consequently cannot bring
their material hatred from the grave. Besides, why should a ghost hate
you, Roland; you, who never harmed any one?"

"Good! You forget all those I have killed in war or in duels."

Amelie shook her head. "I'm not afraid of them."

"Then what are you afraid of?"

The young girl raised her beautiful eyes, wet with tears, to Roland, and
threw herself in his arms, saying: "I don't know, Roland. But I can't
help it, I am afraid."

The young man raised her head, which she was hiding in his breast, with
gentle force, and said, kissing her eyelids softly and tenderly: "You
don't believe I shall have ghosts to fight with to-morrow, do you?"

"Oh, brother, don't go to the Chartreuse!" cried Amelie, eluding the
question.

"Mother told you to say this to me, didn't she?"

"Oh, no, brother! Mother said nothing to me. It is I who guessed that
you intended to go."

"Well, if I want to go," replied Roland firmly, "you ought to know,
Amelie, that I shall go."

"Even if I beseech you on my knees, brother?" cried Amelie in a tone of
anguish, slipping down to her brother's feet; "even if I beseech you on
my knees?"

"Oh! women! women!" murmured Roland, "inexplicable creatures, whose
words are all mystery, whose lips never tell the real secrets of their
hearts, who weep, and pray, and tremble--why? God knows, but man, never!
I shall go, Amelie,