"There you are sensible, Miss Knollys—doubly so as a denizen of this house, which, Mrs. Carter was obliging enough to suggest to me, is considered by many as haunted."
The straightening of Miss Knollys' lips augured no good to Mrs. Carter.
"Now I only wish it was," I laughed dryly. "I should really like to meet a ghost, say, in your great drawing-room, which I am forbidden to enter."
"You are not forbidden," she hastily returned. "You may explore it now if you will excuse me from accompanying you; but you will meet no ghosts. The hour is not propitious."
Taken aback by her sudden amenity, I hesitated for a moment. Would it be worth while for me to search a room she was willing to have me enter? No, and yet any knowledge which could be obtained in regard to this house might be of use to me or to Mr. Gryce. I decided to embrace her offer, after first testing her with one other question.
"Would you prefer to have me steal down these corridors at night and dare their dusky recesses at a time when spectres are supposed to walk the halls they once flitted through in happy consciousness?"
"Hardly." She made the greatest effort to sustain the jest, but her concern and dread were manifest. "I think I had better give you the keys now, than subject you to the drafts and chilling discomforts of this old place at midnight."
I rose with a semblance of eager anticipation.
"I will take you at your word," said I. "The keys, my dear. I am going to visit a haunted room for the first time in my life."
I do not think she was deceived by this feigned ebullition. Perhaps it was too much out of keeping with my ordinary manner, but she gave no sign of surprise and rose in her turn with an air suggestive of relief.