For reply, he took the road she had pointed out. When they were comfortably out of sight from the main street, he stopped again and said:
"What do you mean by haunted?"
"Oh, sir," she began, "not by ghosts; I don't believe in any such nonsense as ghosts; but by memories sir, memories of something which has happened within those four walls and which are now locked up in the hearts of those two girls, making them live like spectres. I am not a fanciful person myself, nor given to imaginings, but that house, especially on nights when the wind blows, seems to be full of something not in nature; and though I do not hear anything or see anything, I feel strange terrors and almost expect the walls to speak or the floors to give up their secrets, but they never do; and that is why I quake in my bed and lie awake so many nights."
"Yet you are not fanciful, nor given to imaginings," smiled Frank.
"No, for there is ground for my secret fears. I see it in the girls' pale looks, I hear it in the girls' restless tread as they pace hour after hour through those lonesome rooms."
"They walk for exercise; they do not use the streets, so they make a promenade of their own floors."
"Do people walk for exercise at night?"
"At night?"
"Late at night; at one, two, sometimes three, in the morning? Oh, sir, it is uncanny, I tell you."
"They are not well; lack of change affects their nerves and they cannot sleep, so they walk."