“There’s nothing more to see here,” said Mrs. Tadman quickly; “I had better go back I don’t know what brought me here; it was talking, I suppose, made me come without thinking.  There’s nothing to show you this way.”

“But there’s another room there,” Ellen said, pointing to a door just before them—­a heavy clumsily-made door, painted black.

“That room—­well, yes; it’s a kind of a room, but hasn’t been used for fifty years and more, I’ve heard say.  Stephen keeps seeds there and such-like.  It’s always locked, and he keeps the key of it.”

There was nothing in this closed room to excite either curiosity or interest in Ellen’s mind, and she was turning away from the door with perfect indifference, when she started and suddenly seized Mrs. Tadman’s arm.

“Hark!” she said, in a frightened, breathless way; “did you hear that?”

“What, child?”

“Did you say there was no one in there—­no one?”

“Lord bless your heart, no, Miss Carley, nor ever is.  What a turn you did give me, grasping hold of my arm like that!”

“I heard something in there—­a footstep.  It must be the servant.”

“What, Martha Holden!  I should like to see her venturing into any room Stephen keeps private to himself.  Besides, that door’s kept locked; try it, and satisfy yourself.”

The door was indeed locked—­a door with a clumsy old-fashioned latch, securely fastened by a staple and padlock.  Ellen tried it with her own hand.

“Is there no other door to the room?” she asked.

“None; and only one window, that looks into the wood-yard, and is almost always blocked up with the wood piled outside it.  You must have heard the muslin bags of seed blowing about, if you heard anything.”

“I heard a footstep,” said Ellen firmly; “a human footstep.  I told you the house was haunted, Mrs. Tadman.”

“Lor, Miss Carley, I wish you wouldn’t say such things; it’s enough to make one’s blood turn cold.  Do come downstairs and have a cup of tea.  It’s quite dark, I declare; and you’ve given me the shivers with your queer talk.”

“I’m sorry for that; but the noise I heard must have been either real or ghostly, and you won’t believe it’s real.”

“It was the seed-bags, of course.”

“They couldn’t make a noise like human footsteps.  However, it’s no business of mine, Mrs. Tadman, and I don’t want to frighten you.”

They went downstairs to the parlour, where the tea-tray and a pair of candles were soon brought, and where Mrs. Tadman stirred the fire into a blaze with an indifference to the consumption of fuel which made her kinsman stare, even on that hospitable occasion.  The blaze made the dark wainscoted room cheerful of aspect, however, which the two candles could not have done, as their light was almost absorbed by the gloomy panelling.

After tea there was whist again, and a considerable consumption of spirits-and-water on the part of the two gentlemen, in which Mrs. Tadman joined modestly, with many protestations, and, with the air of taking only an occasional spoonful, contrived to empty her tumbler, and allowed herself to be persuaded to take another by the bailiff, whose joviality on the occasion was inexhaustible.