He had never forgotten that, nor forgiven her for saying it—­though he had never believed that it was true.

Almost as if she was reading into his mind, Bubbles said wistfully:  “You won’t leave off caring for me, Bill?  Not even if I marry somebody else?  Not even—?” She laughed nervously, and her laugh, to Donnington a horrible laugh, echoed through the dimly lit church.  “Not even,” she repeated, “if I bring myself to marry Mr. Tapster?”

He seized her roughly by the arm.  “What d’you mean, Bubbles?” he asked sternly.

“Don’t do that!  You hurt me—­I was only joking,” she said, shrinking back.  “But you are really too simple, Bill.  Didn’t it occur to you that Mr. Tapster had been asked here for me?”

“For you?” He uttered the words mechanically.  He understood now why men sometimes murder their sweet-hearts—­for no apparent motive.

“He’s not a bad sort.  It isn’t his fault that he’s so repulsive.  It wouldn’t be fair if he was as rich as that, and good-looking, and amiable, and agreeable, as well—­would it?”

They were walking down the church, and perhaps Bubbles caught a glimpse into his heart:  “I’m a beast,” she exclaimed.  “A beast to have spoiled our time together in this dear old church by saying that to you about Mr. Tapster.  Try and forget it, Bill!”

He made no answer.  His brain was in a whirlwind of wrath, of suspicion, of anger, of sick jealousy.  This was the real danger—­not all the nonsense that Bubbles talked about her power of raising ghosts, and of being haunted by unquiet spirits.  The real danger the girl was in now was that of being persuaded into marrying that loathsome Tapster—­for his money.

He left her near the door while he went back to put out the lights.  Then he groped his way to where she was standing, waiting for him.  In the darkness he looked for, found, and lifted, the heavy latch.  Together they began pacing down the path between the graves in the churchyard, and then all of a sudden he put his hand on her arm:  “What’s that?  Hark!” he whispered.

He seemed to hear issuing from the grand old church a confused, musical medley of sounds—­a bleating, a neighing, a lowing, even a faint trumpeting, all mingling together and forming a strange, not unmelodious harmony.

“D’you hear anything, Bubbles?” he asked, his heart beating, his face, in the darkness, all aglow.

“No, nothing,” she answered back, surprised.  “We must hurry, Bill.  We’re late as it is.”

CHAPTER IX

It had been Bubbles’ happy idea that the children of the tiny hamlet which lay half-a-mile from Wyndfell Hall, should have a Christmas tree.  Hers, also, that the treat for the children was to be combined with the distribution of a certain amount of coal and of other creature comforts to the older folk.

All the arrangements with regard to this double function had been made before the party at Wyndfell Hall had been gathered together.  But still, there were all sorts of last things to be thought of, and Lionel Varick and Bubbles became quite chummy over the affair.