With pale face and sinking heart she led the way into her chamber, and to the corner where the paper-knife yet lay upon the floor in testimony of the actuality of her interview with the wraith. Under her directions the panel was removed from the wainscot, a labor which was not effected without a good deal of difficulty. Arthur sneered at the whole thing, but he yet was good-natured enough to do what the girls asked of him.
Only the dust of centuries rewarded their search. When it was fully established that there were no jewel-cases there, poor Irene broke down entirely, and burst into convulsive weeping.
“There, there,” Arthur said soothingly. “Don’t feel like that. We’ve got on without the diamonds thus far, and we can still.”
“It is n’t the diamonds that I’m crying for,” sobbed Irene, with all the naïveté of a child that has lost its pet toy. “It’s you!”
There was no withstanding this appeal. Arthur took her into his arms and comforted her, while Fanny discreetly looked the other way; and so the engagement was allowed to stand, although the McHugh diamonds had not been found.
VII
But the next night Irene faced the ghost with an expression of contempt that might have withered the spirit of Hamlet’s sire.
“So you think it proper to deceive a lady?” she inquired scornfully. “Is that the way in which the gentlemen of the ‘old school,’ of which we hear so much, behaved?”
“Why, you should reflect,” the wraith responded waveringly, “that you had made me intoxicated.” And, indeed, the poor spirit still showed the effects of its debauch.