"Not at all," replied Monsieur Paul.

"Then she is just a friend of yours?" I persisted, rather stupidly.

"She has lost both her father and mother," answered Monsieur de Gabry,
keeping his eyes fixed upon the ears of his horse, whose hoofs rang
loudly over the road blue-tinted by the moonshine. "Her father
managed to get us into some very serious trouble; and we did not get
off with a fright either!"

Then he shook his head, and changed the subject. He gave me due
warning of the ruinous condition in which I should find the chateau
and the park; they had been absolutely deserted for thirty-two years.

I learned from him that Monsieur Honore de Gabry, his uncle, had been
on very bad terms with some poachers, whom he used to shoot at like
rabbits. One of them, a vindictive peasant, who had received a whole
charge of shot in his face, lay in wait for the Seigneur one evening
behind the trees of the mall, and very nearly succeeded in killing
him, for the ball took off the tip of his ear.

"My uncle," Monsieur Paul continued, "tried to discover who had fired
the shot; but he could not see any one, and he walked back slowly
to the house. The day after he called his steward and ordered him
to close up the manor and the park, and allow no living soul to enter.
He expressly forbade that anything should be touched, or looked after,
or any repairs made on the estate during his absence. He added,
between his teeth, that he would return at Easter, or Trinity Sunday,
as they say in the song; and, just as the song has it, Trinity
Sunday passed without a sign of him. He died last year at Monaco;