Mr. Arnold was considerably out of humour, and ready to pounce upon any object of complaint.  He would have attacked Hugh with a pompous speech on the subject of his carelessness, but he was rather afraid of his tutor now; —­ so certainly will the stronger get the upper hand in time.  He did not even refer to the subject of the accident.  Therefore, although it filled the minds of all at table, it was scarcely more than alluded to.  But having nothing at hand to find fault with more suitable, he laid hold of the first wise remark volunteered by good Mrs. Elton; whereupon an amusing pas de deux immediately followed; for it could not be called a duel, inasmuch as each antagonist kept skipping harmlessly about the other, exploding theological crackers, firmly believed by the discharger to be no less than bomb-shells.  At length Mrs. Elton withdrew.

“By the way, Mr. Sutherland,” said Mr. Arnold, “have you succeeded in deciphering that curious inscription yet?  I don’t like the ring to remain long out of my own keeping.  It is quite an heirloom, I assure you.”

Hugh was forced to confess that he had never thought of it again.

“Shall I fetch it at once?” added he.

“Oh! no,” replied Mr. Arnold.  “I should really like to understand the inscription.  To-morrow will do perfectly well.”

They went to the drawing-room.  Everything was wretched.  However many ghosts might be in the house, it seemed to Hugh that there was no soul in it except in one room.  The wind sighed fitfully, and the rain fell in slow, soundless showers.  Mr. Arnold felt the vacant oppression as well as Hugh.  Mrs Elton having gone to Lady Emily’s room, he proposed back gammon; and on that surpassing game, the gentlemen expended the best part of two dreary hours.  When Hugh reached his room he was too tired and spiritless for any intellectual effort; and, instead of trying to decipher the ring, went to bed, and slept as if there were never a ghost or a woman in the universe.

His first proceeding, after breakfast next day, was to get together his German books; and his next to take out the ring, which was to be subjected to their analytical influences.  He went to his desk, and opened the secret place.  There he stood fixed. —­ The ring was gone.  His packet of papers was there, rather crumpled:  the ring was nowhere.  What had become of it?  It was not long before a conclusion suggested itself.  It flashed upon him all at once.

“The ghost has got it,” he said, half aloud.  “It is shining now on her dead finger.  It was Lady Euphrasia.  She was going for it then.  It wasn’t on her thumb when she went.  She came back with it, shining through the dark —­ stepped over me, perhaps, as I lay on the floor in her way.”

He shivered, like one in an ague-fit.

Again and again, with that frenzied, mechanical motion, which, like the eyes of a ghost, has “no speculation” in it, he searched the receptacle, although it freely confessed its emptiness to any asking eye.  Then he stood gazing, and his heart seemed to stand still likewise.