“Cissy is to keep the ghost at bay, is she?” said Atherley.  “I hope she may.  I don’t want another night as lively as the last.”

“Who else has seen the ghost?” asked Mrs. de Noel, thoughtfully.  “Has Mr. Lyndsay?”

“No, Lindy will never see the ghost; he is too much of a sceptic.  Even if he saw it he would not believe in it, and there is nothing a ghost hates like that.  But he has seen the people who saw the ghost, and he tells their several stories very well.”

“Would you tell me, Mr. Lyndsay?” asked Mrs. de Noel.

I could do nothing but obey her wish; still I secretly questioned the wisdom of doing so, especially when, as I went on, I observed stealing over her listening face the shadow of some disturbing thought.

“Well now, Cissy is thoroughly well frightened,” observed Atherley.  “Perhaps we had better go to bed.”

“It is no good saying so to Lucinda,” said Lady Atherley, as we all rose, “because it only puts her out; but I shall always feel certain myself it was a mouse; because I remember in the house we had at Bournemouth two years ago there was a mouse in my room which often made such a noise knocking down the plaster inside the wall, it used to quite startle me.”

That night the storm finally subsided.  When the morning came the rain fell no longer, the cry of the wind had ceased, and the cloud-curtain above us was growing lighter and softer as if penetrated and suffused by the growing sunshine behind it.

I was late for breakfast that day.

“Mr. Lyndsay, Tip is all right again,” cried Denis at sight of me.  “Mrs. Mallet says it was chicken bones he stole from the cat’s dish.”

“Is that all?” observed Atherley sardonically; “I thought he must have seen the ghost.  By the bye, Cissy, did you see it?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. de Noel simply, at which Atherley visibly started, and instantly began talking of something else.

Mrs. Molyneux was to leave by an afternoon train, but, to the relief of everybody, it was discovered that Mrs. Mallet had indefinitely postponed her departure.  She remained in the mildest of humours and in the most philosophical of tempers, as I myself can testify; for, meeting her by accident in the hall, I was encouraged by the amiability of her simper to say that I hoped we should have no more trouble with the ghost, when she answered in words I have often since admiringly quoted—­

“Perhaps not, sir, but I don’t seem to care even if we do; for I had a dream last night, and a spirit seemed to whisper in my ear, ’Don’t be afraid; it is only a token of death.’”

After Mrs. Molyneux had started, with Mrs. de Noel as her companion as far as the station, and all the rest of the party had gone out to sun themselves in the brightness of the afternoon, I worked through a long arrears of correspondence:  and I was just finishing a letter, when Atherley, whom I supposed to be far distant, came into the library.