"What is the ghost's name and age?" the girl went on with her catechism.
"Her name, if one was to take her word, which I'm far from being certain of, is Mrs. Gone; and as for her age, miss, she might be almost anywhere between fifty and a hundred."
"What a clever old lady!" laughed the girl. "Well, we can't turn the poor wretch away while she's ill, if she is ill, can we? I know too well what it is to be alone in the world and down on your luck, to be hard on anybody else, especially a woman. We must give Mrs. Gone the benefit of the doubt for a little while. But your description has quite interested me; I should like to see this ghost who doesn't walk."
"The house is the same as yours, miss," said Miss Witt. "You have the right to go into her room at any time, more particularly as she hasn't paid for it."
"Perhaps I'll carry up her dinner this evening, by way of an excuse," returned Joan--"if you think she could bear the shock of seeing a strange face."
Upon this, Miss Witt, who adored the girl, protested that, in her opinion, the sight of such a face could only be a pleasure to any person and in any circumstances. Joan laughed at the compliment, but she did not forget her intention. Mrs. Gone's meals were usually taken up a few minutes before the gong summoned the guests to the dining-room, because it was easier to spare a servant then than later, and it was just after the dressing-bell had rung that the girl knocked at the "ghost's" door.
Joan was surprised to find her heart quickening its beats as she waited for a bidding to "Come in!" One would think that a sight of this old woman who would not pay her board was an exciting event! She smiled at herself, but the smile faded as she threw open the door in answer to a faint murmur on the other side. Miss Witt's sketch of Mrs. Gone had not been an exaggeration.
There she lay on a sofa by the window, her face gleaming white in the twilight; and it was a wonderful face. A shiver went creeping up and down Joan's spine, as a flame leaped out from the shadowy hollows of two sunken eyes to hers.
"This woman has been some one in particular--some one extraordinary," the girl thought quickly; and as politely as if she had addressed a duchess, she explained her intrusion. "The servants were busy, and I offered to carry up your dinner," Joan said. "I arrived only to-day; and as Miss Witt looks upon me as a sort of proprietor, she told me how ill you have been. I hope you are better."
The old woman with the strange face looked steadily at the beautiful girl in the pretty, simple, evening frock which was to grace the boarding-house dinner. "Did Miss Witt tell you nothing else?" she asked, in a voice which would have made the fortune of a tragic actress in the death scene of some aged queen.