“Oh! sweet phantom, return to life,” he said.  “Take again thy body adorned with its graces and with its charms; come, clothed in thy sixteen years.”

And he stretched his arms towards the enchanting vision, while the death’s-head, with its bare jaw, gave its eternal grin.

He woke and found himself kneeling near his bed, facing the wreck of humanity.

Horror soiled him.  His empty room was filled with spectres.  He saw hell-hags with death’s-heads sporting and swarming on his bed.  At the same time, little sharp, hasty, shrill knocks shook his window.

Fall of terror he ran to open it.  A gust of wind, mingled with rain and hail, heat against his face.  He was ashamed of his fears and leant his head out to catch the beneficent shower.  His brain cooled and his blood grew calm.

He was there for a few minutes, when all at once, under the trees in the market-place, he thought he distinguished two motionless shadows.  He thought for an instant that his hallucination lasted still, but soon the shadows drew near.  They seemed to walk carefully under the young foliage of the limes in order to avoid the rain, and in one of them he recognized distinctly Suzanne.

XXXIV.

THE PROHIBITION.

  “Do you know any means of making
  a woman do that which she has decided
  that she will not do?”

  ERNEST FEYDEAU (La Comtesse de Chalis).

That same day, after supper, the Captain had entered the drawing-room where Suzanne was playing the Requiem of Mozart.

—­So you are playing Church airs now? he said to her.

—­Don’t you like this piece, father?

—­Not at all.

—­Perhaps, said Suzanne smiling, because it is a Mass.

—­My dear child, do you want me to tell you what you are with all your
Masses?

—­What?

—­Where did you go this morning?

—­At what time?

—­At the time when you went out.

—­I only went out to go to Mass.

—­And the day before yesterday?

—­Why this questioning, dearest papa?

—­Ah! dearest papa, dearest papa.  There is no dearest papa here, I want to know the truth.

—­But what truth?  I have nothing wrong to hide from you.  I went to Mass.  Is that forbidden?

—­To Mass!  Good Heavens!  To Mass!  That is most decidedly making up your mind to disobey me!

—­But papa, you have not forbidden it to me.

—­Not in so many words, it is true; because I counted on your reason and good sense.  Have I not spoken loudly enough my way of thinking on this subject?

—­But, papa, your way of thinking is completely contrary to that which I have been taught.  You ought to have said when you sent me to Saint-Denis:  “You are not to teach my daughter any religion.”  They have taught me religion, what is more natural than for me to follow it.