"Then you dreamed it," he said huffily. "The proof is that no one has
lived in that house these twenty years."

Now, I had plenty to trouble about without troubling my head over
night-hawks, but I was vexed with him for putting me off. So, with a
fine conceit of my own shrewdness, I said:

"If it was only a dream, how came you to spill the wine?"

He gave me a keen glance, and then, with a look round to see that no one
was by, leaned across the table, up to me.

"You are sharp as a gimlet," said he. "I see I may as well tell you
first as last. Marry, an you will have it, the place is haunted."

"Holy Virgin!" I cried, crossing myself.

"Aye. Twenty years ago, in the great massacre--you know naught of that:
you were not born, I take it, and, besides, are a country boy. But I was
here, and I know. A man dared not stir out of doors that dark day. The
gutters ran blood."

"And that house--what happened in that house?"

"Why, it was the house of a Huguenot gentleman, M. de Béthune," he
answered, bringing out the name hesitatingly in a low voice. "They were
all put to the sword--the whole household. It was Guise's work. The Duc
de Guise sat on his white horse, in this very street here, while it was
going on. Parbleu! that was a day."