e truth, and tell me if you
see them," cried the old man.

"I see nothing but darkness--pitch darkness," answered Gabriel, letting
the door close again.

"Ah! woe! woe!" groaned his grandfather, sinking back exhausted on the
pillow. "Darkness to _you;_ but bright as lightning to the eyes that
are allowed to see them. Drowned! drowned! Pray for their souls,
Gabriel--_I_ see the White Women even where I lie, and dare not pray for
them. Son and grandson drowned! both drowned!"

The young man went back to Perrine and the children.

"Grandfather is very ill to-night," he whispered. "You had better all go
into the bedroom, and leave me alone to watch by him."

They rose as he spoke, crossed themselves before the image of the
Virgin, kissed him one by one, and, without uttering a word, softly
entered the little room on the other side of the partition. Gabriel
looked at his grandfather, and saw that he lay quiet now, with his eyes
closed as if he were already dropping asleep. The young man then heaped
some fresh logs on the fire, and sat down by it to watch till morning.

Very dreary was the moaning of the night storm; but it was not
more dreary than the thoughts which now occupied him in his
solitude--thoughts darkened and distorted by the terrible superstitions
of his country and his race. Ever since the period of his mother's death
he had been oppressed by the conviction that some curse hung over the
family. At first they had been prosperous, they had got money, a little
legacy had been left them. But this good fortune had availed only for
a time; disaster on disaster strangely and suddenly succeeded. Losses,
misfortunes, poverty, want itself had overwhelmed them; his father's
temper had become so soured, that the oldest friends of Francois Sarzeau
declared he was changed beyond recognition. And now, all this past
misfortune--the steady, withering, household blight of many years--had
ended in the last, worst misery of all--in death. The fate of his
father and his brother admitted no longer of a doubt; he knew it, as he
listened to the storm, as he reflected on his grandfather's words, as
he called to mind his own experience of the perils of the sea. And this
double bereavement had fallen on him just as the time was approaching
for his marriage with Perrine; just when misfortune was most ominous of
evil, just when it was hardest to bear! Forebodings, which he dared not
realize, began now to mingle with the bitterness of