There was no result.

Ordinary sentinels can pace to and fro to make the moments go more quickly, but Edwin and John and William were compelled to stand without speech or motion, as to betray their presence would have been to defeat their purpose.  At the end of half an hour their patience was worn out, and they came to the conclusion that whoever was playing the trick knew that they were watching; so they went in, and hardly were they in and the door shut when the bell rang again.

John rushed from the kitchen, whither he had gone for something, but the others, being in the dining-room and nearer the door, reached it before him; and again nothing was to be seen but the still calm night, in which hung the moon with all her accustomed unimpassioned serenity.  What cared she for ghosts?  Perhaps she is only a ghost herself, else why, with all her pale quiet ways, does she never turn round and show herself thoroughly?  No doubt she has reasons of her own, whether they are good or not:  her sex is apt to be both capricious and persistent—­two qualities which she possesses in perfection.

The Ormistons and Edwin stood out on the broad walk before the door, none of them feeling very comfortable, if the truth must be told, but none of them showing their feelings except Bell and Jessie, who openly declared that they were very much frightened.

“Nonsense!” said Bessie.  “Who is going to be frightened at a silly trick?”

“But it may be somebody wanting to get in to do us harm—­kill us perhaps,” suggested Bell.

“People who want to get into a house for bad ends don’t ring the front doorbell, or any bell,” said Bessie.

At this junction two figures appeared in the distance advancing along the road to the castle—­soon made out to be the servants, so that they at least were guiltless in the affair.

“It has not been them, you see,” cried John.

“No,” Bessie said, “and you are not to say anything about it to them when they come:  if they know anything of it, it will soon leak out; and if they don’t tell, they will be quite frightened:  they are as easily frightened as Bell or Jessie here.”

V.

All this time Mr. Forrester was feeling—­not frightened certainly, but—­perplexed; and while he could not but admire Miss Ormiston’s coolness and courage, he could not help wishing that she had been just a little bit chicken-hearted:  it would have been so delightful to have to act as protector and supporter.  But there was no opening whatever for such a position:  she took the mysterious affair into her own hands and pooh-poohed it entirely.

They were accustomed to early hours at Cockhoolet, but when the time came for going to bed the girls declared they were too frightened to go up stairs alone.  “It would be far better,” they both said, “for us to stay here all together in this room till morning:  we could sit up quite well.”