“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 instantaneous; the sinking vital forces rallied desperately.  The old man’s eyes opened again, wandered round the room, then fixed themselves intently on Francois as he stood near the fire.  Trying and terrible as his position was at that moment, Gabriel still retained self-possession enough to whisper a few words in Perrine’s ear.  “Go back again into the bedroom, and take the children with you,” he said.  “We may have something to speak about which you had better not hear.”

“Son Gabriel, your grandfather is trembling all over,” said Francois.  “If he is dying at all, he is dying of cold; help me to lift him, bed and all, to the hearth.”

“No, no! don’t let him touch me!” gasped the old man.  “Don’t let him look at me in that way!  Don’t let him come near me, Gabriel!  Is it his ghost? or is it himself?”

As Gabriel answered he heard a knocking at the door.  His father opened it, and disclosed to view some people from the neighboring fishing village, who had come—­more out of curiosity than sympathy—­to inquire whether Francois and the boy Pierre had survived the night.  Without asking any one to enter, the fisherman surlily and shortly answered the various questions addressed to him, standing in his own doorway.  While he was thus engaged, Gabriel heard his grandfather muttering vacantly to himself, “Last night—­how about last night, grandson?  What was I talking about last night?  Did I say your father was drowned?  Very foolish to say he was drowned, and then see him come back alive again!  But it wasn’t that—­I’m so weak in my head, I can’t remember.  What was it, Gabriel?  Something too horrible to speak of?  Is that what you’re whispering and trembling about?  I said nothing horrible.  A crime!  Bloodshed!  I know nothing of any crime or bloodshed here—­I must have been frightened out of my wits to talk in that way!  The Merchant’s