CHATEAU D’OR.
We had left Paris behind us, and were going down to the southern part of France, as far as Marseilles and Nice. All day Hal and I had had the compartment to ourselves, and had talked, and smoked, and read, and looked out upon the country through which we were passing so rapidly. But this had become rather monotonous, and I was beginning to tire of the gray rocks, and bleak mountain sides, and gnarled olive trees, when suddenly, as we turned a curve and came out into a more open and fertile tract, Hal seized my arm, and pointing to the left of us, said:
“Quick, quick! Do you see that old chateau in the distance?”
Following the direction of his hand, I saw what at first seemed to be a mass of dark stone walls, turrets, towers, and balconies, tumbled promiscuously together, and forming an immense pile of ruins. A closer and nearer inspection, however, showed me a huge stone building, which must have been very old, judging from its style of architecture, and the thickness of its walls, and the gray moss, which had crept up to the very eaves, and found there before it the ivy, which grows so rankly and luxuriously in many parts of France.
“Yes, I see it,” I said. “What of it, and what place is it?”
“That,” said Hal, “is Chateau d’Or, which, translated into plain English for a stupid like you, means ‘Chateau of gold,’ though why that somber, dreary old pile should have that name is more than I can tell, unless it is that it cost so much to build it. It is nearly two hundred years old. Its first owner ruined himself on it, I believe, and it has passed through many hands since. You see that stream of water yonder, almost a river? Well, that passes entirely round the chateau, which really stands on an island, and is only accessible from one point, and that an iron bridge. That old building has been the scene of the strangest story you ever heard—almost a tragedy, in fact, and the heroine was an American woman, and native of my own town. I’ll tell you about it to-night, after we have had our dinner.”
I was interested now, and leaned far out of the window to look at the chateau, which seemed gloomy and dreary enough to warrant the wildest story one could tell of it. And that night I heard the story which I now write down, using sometimes Hal Morton’s words, and sometimes my own.