“Are you sure you have nerve enough for this, Hugh?” she said, still playing.

“I have had nerve enough to sit still and look at you for the last half hour,” answered Hugh, rudely.

She turned pale, and glanced up at him with a troubled look.  Then, without responding to his answer, said: 

“I daresay the count is not over-anxious to hold you to your bet.”

“Pray intercede for me with the count, madam,” answered Hugh, sarcastically.  “He would not wish the young fool to be frightened, I daresay.  But perhaps he wishes to have an interview with the ghost himself, and grudges me the privilege.”

She turned deadly pale this time, and gave him one terrified glance, but made no other reply to his words.  Still she played on.

“You will arm yourself?”

“Against a ghost?  Yes, with a stout heart.”

“But don’t forget the secret door through which we came that night, Hugh.  I distrust the count.”

The last words were spoken in a whisper, emphasized into almost a hiss.

“Tell him I shall be armed.  I tell you I shall meet him bare-handed.  Betray me if you like.”

Hugh had taken his revenge, and now came the reaction.  He gazed at Euphra; but instead of the injured look, which was the best he could hope to see, an expression of “pity and ruth” grew slowly in her face, making it more lovely than ever in his eyes.  At last she seemed on the point of bursting into tears; and, suddenly changing the music, she began playing a dead-march.  She kept her eyes on the keys.  Once more, only, she glanced round, to see whether Hugh was still by her side; and he saw that her face was pale as death, and wet with silent tears.  He had never seen her weep before.  He would have fallen at her feet, had he been alone with her.  To hide his feelings, he left the room, and then the house.

He wandered into the Ghost’s Walk; and, finding himself there, walked up and down in it.  This was certainly throwing the lady a bold challenge, seeing he was going to spend the night in her room.

The excitement into which jealousy had thrown him, had been suddenly checked by the sight of Euphra’s tears.  The reaction, too, after his partial intoxication, had already begun to set in; to be accounted for partly by the fact that its source had been chiefly champagne, and partly by the other fact, that he had bound himself in honour, to dare a spectre in her own favourite haunt.

On the other hand, the sight of Euphra’s emotion had given him a far better courage than jealousy or wine could afford.  Yet, after ten minutes passed in the shadows of the Ghost’s Walk, he would not have taken the bet at ten times its amount.