I was in Europe at the time." "And since then he has never reappeared ?" "Never." Nanteuil looked at him, disappointed.
"I thought he had come when he was dead.

But since he was in prison you certainly could not have seen him in your house.

You only thought you saw him." The physician, understanding what was in Felicie's mind, quickly replied: "My dear little Nanteuil, believe what I tell you.

The phantoms of the dead have no more reality than the phantoms of the living." Without attending to what he was saying, she asked him if it was really because he suffered from his liver that he had a vision.

He replied that he believed that the bad state of his digestive organs, general fatigue, and a tendency to congestion, had all predisposed him to behold an apparition.
"There was; I believe," he added, "a more immediate cause.