“How kind of him,” reflected Mr. Granger; “no doubt he has been speaking to Beatrice again about Owen Davies.”

“Oh, by the way,” he added aloud, “did you happen to hear anybody moving in the house last night, Mr. Bingham, just when the storm was at its height?  First of all a door slammed so violently that I got up to see what it was, and as I came down the passage I could almost have sworn that I saw something white go into the spare room.  But my candle went out and by the time that I had found a light there was nothing to be seen.”

“A clear case of ghosts,” said Geoffrey indifferently.  It was indeed a “case of ghosts,” and they would, he reflected, haunt him for many a day.

“How very odd,” put in Elizabeth vivaciously, her keen eyes fixed intently on his face.  “Do you know I thought that I twice saw the door of our room open and shut in the most mysterious fashion.  I think that Beatrice must have something to do with it; she is so uncanny in her ways.”

Geoffrey never moved a muscle, he was trained to keep his countenance.  Only he wondered how much this woman knew.  She must be silenced somehow.

“Excuse me for changing the subject,” he said, “but my time is short, and I have none to spare to hunt the ‘Vicarage Ghost.’  By the way, there’s a good title for somebody.  Mr. Granger, I believe that I may speak of business matters before Miss Elizabeth?”

“Certainly, Mr. Bingham,” said the clergyman; “Elizabeth is my right hand, and has the best business head in Bryngelly.”

Geoffrey thought that this was very evident, and went on.  “I only want to say this.  If you get into any further difficulties with your rascally tithe-payers, mind and let me know.  I shall always be glad to help you while I can.  And now I must be going.”

He spoke thus for two reasons.  First, naturally enough, he meant to make it his business to protect Beatrice from the pressure of poverty, and well knew that it would be useless to offer her direct assistance.  Secondly, he wished to show Elizabeth that it would not be to the advantage of her family to quarrel with him.  If she had seen a ghost, perhaps this fact would make her reticent on the subject.  He did not know that she was playing a much bigger game for her own hand, a game of which the stakes were thousands a year, and that she was moreover mad with jealousy and what, in such a woman, must pass for love.

Elizabeth made no comment on his offer, and before Mr. Granger’s profuse thanks were nearly finished, Geoffrey was gone.

Three weeks passed at Bryngelly, and Elizabeth still held her hand.  Beatrice, pale and spiritless, went about her duties as usual.  Elizabeth never spoke to her in any sense that could awaken her suspicions, and the ghost story was, or appeared to be, pretty well forgotten.  But at last an event occurred that caused Elizabeth to take the field.  One day she met Owen Davies walking along the beach in the semi-insane way which he now affected.  He stopped, and, without further ado, plunged into conversation.