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“What sort of thing?” I asked, involuntarily sinking my voice to the level of hers. Inwardly I was thinking: “I knew there was something....”
Madame de Lanrivain cleared her throat and produced a reassuring smile. “Didn’t Hervé tell you the story of Kerfol? An ancestor of his was mixed up in it. You know every Breton house has its ghost-story; and some of them are rather unpleasant.”
“Yes—but those dogs?”
“Well, those dogs are the ghosts of Kerfol. At least, the peasants say there’s one day in the year when a lot of dogs appear there; and that day the keeper and his daughter go off to Morlaix and get drunk. The women in Brittany drink dreadfully.” She stooped to match a silk; then she lifted her charming, inquisitive Parisian face. “Did you really see a lot of dogs? There isn’t one at Kerfol,” she said.
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Lanrivain, the next day, hunted out a shabby calf volume from the back of an upper shelf of his library.
“Yes—here it is. What does it call itself? A History of the Assizes of the Duchy of Brittany. Quimper, 1702. The book was written about a hundred years later than the Kerfol affair; but I believe the account is transcribed pretty literally from the judicial records. Anyhow, it’s queer reading. And there’s a Hervé de Lanrivain mixed up in it—not exactly my style, as you’ll see. But then he’s only a collateral. Here, take the book up to bed with you. I don’t exactly remember the details; but after you’ve read it, I’ll bet anything you’ll leave your light burning all night!”