The conversation that took place is as well to be imagined as transcribed. Enough to say that I determined to have no share in Le Brun's narrative, but left him to heighten it for himself. I parted with him at my house, where I found Grace looking out for me; and he promised to return in the course of the morning to pay his respects to her. To my surprise, however, when he came, he asked me for five minutes' conversation, and we went together into the field belonging to my house, which sloped down to the Seine. His countenance was _both_ joyous and anxious, and I saw that he had something heavier on his mind than last night's frolic. "I have spoken to you of M. Gray," he said, "and of Mademoiselle Raymond. I have learnt this morning that M. Gray has her father in his power." "You learnt that from her?" I asked. He blushed and did not answer. I went on. I had compared notes with my brother about this Gray, and found my suspicions correct. I therefore told Le Brun what I had overheard on the zigzag, and he in reply told me that Raymond had accepted a bill for the amount of the debt to Gray. "That's serious," I said. "But before we say more, monsieur, are you engaged to Mademoiselle Esther?" He replied in the affirmative. "Can you live--excuse the question--with her without dowry?" He replied in the affirmative again. "Then," I said, "though it may sound oddly from one of my cloth, you must either elope with her----" "But then M. Raymond?--But his family?" "He must suffer for his folly; not you. And you are only going to marry one daughter, not all of them. The other alternative is--you must pay Raymond's acceptance, as he cannot." "It would be ruin. I cannot, either," he replied. "Then you must lose Esther." "I will not. No. And yet if I was to shoot Gray----" "Shoot?" I interrupted, with the virtuous horror of a man who has never been tempted to fight a duel--"and would you then outrage the laws of divine and human?" "No; it wouldn't do to shoot him," he pursued. "But oh, monsieur, can you not suggest something to help me--to help us?" A thought suddenly came into my head. "Gray is pledged to spend to-night in the haunted house, is he not?" I asked. He answered that it was so. "I believe the man to be an arrant coward," I went on. "To be sure, he shot a dear friend of mine in a duel, and behaved, as the world says, like a brave man before his witnesses. But he's a coward for all that, and we'll test it. I don't believe in our friend the Goblin Farmer; I don't believe we saw any body, or any spirit last night at all. Well, never mind beliefs; don't interrupt me. I think our eyes were made the fools of other senses, and that there's no such thing. Gray has to spend the night there--we'll go again to-night, that is, if my wife will let me, and perhaps get my brother to help us--eh? Suppose we give him a lesson." And I laughed.