Pierre lay
almost insensible in his arms. In the astonishment and fright of the
first moment, Perrine screamed as she recognized him.

"There, there, there!" he said, peevishly, advancing straight to the
hearth with his burden; "don't make a noise. You never expected to
see us alive again, I dare say. We gave ourselves up as lost, and only
escaped after all by a miracle."

He laid the boy down where he could get the full warmth of the fire; and
then, turning round, took a wicker-covered bottle from his pocket,
and said, "If it hadn't been for the brandy--" He stopped
suddenly--started--put down the bottle on the bench near him--and
advanced quickly to the bedside.

Perrine looked after him as he went; and saw Gabriel, who had risen when
the door was opened, moving back from the bed as Francois approached.
The young man's face seemed to have been suddenly struck to stone--its
blank, ghastly whiteness was awful to look at. He moved slowly backward
and backward till he came to the cottage wall--then stood quite still,
staring on his father with wild, vacant eyes, moving his hands to and
fro before him, muttering, but never pronouncing one audible word.

Francois did not appear to notice his son; he had the coverlet of the
bed in his hand.

"Anything the matter here?" he asked, as he drew it down.

Still Gabriel could not speak. Perrine saw it, and answered for him.

"Gabriel is afraid that his poor grandfather is dead," she whispered,
nervously.

"Dead!" There was no sorrow in the tone as he echoed the word. "Was he
very bad in the night before his death happened? Did he wander in his
mind? He has been rather light-headed lately."

"He was very restless, and spoke of the ghostly warnings that we all
know of; he said he saw and heard many things which told him from
the other world that you and Pierre--Gabriel!" she screamed, suddenly
interrupting herself, "look at him! Look at his face! Your grandfather
is not dead!"

At this moment, Francois was raising his father's head to look closely
at him. A faint spasm had indeed passed over the deathly face; the lips
quivered, the jaw dropped. Francois shuddered as he looked, and moved
away hastily from the bed. At the same instant Gabriel started from the
wall; his expression altered, his pale cheeks flushed suddenly, as he
snatched up the wicker-cased bottle, and poured all the little brandy
that was left in it down his grandfather's throat.

The effect was nearly i