meal proceeded in the same silence in which it had begun.  But this short interchange of looks had given me an idea.  He showed an eager interest in me quite apart from his duty to me as waiter.  He was nearer sixty, than fifty, but it was not his age which made his hand tremble as he laid down a plate before me or served me with coffee and bread.  Whether this interest was malevolent or kindly I found it impossible to judge.  He had a stoic’s face with but one eloquent feature—­his eyes; and these he kept studiously lowered after that one quick glance.  Would it help matters for me to address him?  Possibly, but I decided not to risk it.  Whatever my immediate loss I must on no account rouse the least distrust in this evidently watchful household.  If knowledge came naturally, well and good; I must not seem to seek it.

The result proved my discretion.  As I was rising from the table Nixon himself made this remark: 

“Mrs. Packard will be glad to see you in her room up-stairs any time after ten o’clock.  Ellen will show you where.”  Then, as I was framing a reply, he added in a less formal tone:  “I hope you were not disturbed last night.  I told the girls not to be so noisy.”

Now they had been very quiet, so I perceived that he simply wanted to open conversation.

“I slept beautifully,” I assured him.  “Indeed, I’m not easily kept awake.  I don’t believe I could keep awake if I knew that a ghost would stalk through my room at midnight.”

His eyes opened, and he did just what I had intended him to do, —­met my glance directly.

“Ghosts!” he repeated, edging uneasily forward, perhaps with the intention of making audible his whisper:  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

I laughed easily and with a ringing merriment, like the light-hearted girl I should be and am not.

“No,” said I, “why should I?  But I should like to.  I really should enjoy the experience of coming face to face with a wholly shadowless being.”

He stared and now his eyes told nothing.  Mechanically I moved to go, mechanically he stepped aside to give me place.  But his curiosity or his interest would not allow him to see me pass out without making another attempt to understand me.  Stammering in his effort to seem indifferent, he dropped this quiet observation just as I reached the door.

“Some people say, or at least I have heard it whispered in the neighborhood, that this house is haunted.  I’ve never seen anything, myself.”

I forced myself to give a tragic start (I was half ashamed of my arts), and, coming back, turned a purposely excited countenance toward him.

“This house!” I cried.  “Oh, how lovely!  I never thought I should have the good fortune of passing the night in a house that is really haunted.  What are folks supposed to see?  I don’t know much about ghosts out of books.”

This nonplussed him.  He was entirely out of his element.  He glanced nervously at the door and tried to seem at his ease; perhaps tried to copy my own manner as he mumbled these words: