"Do you mean to tell me," was his response, "that having come so far on your first visit, your wife did not immediately abandon the idea of taking a house in such a locality?"
"Whatever may have been in her mind," I replied, "she certainly insisted upon finding the house and going over it. It was offered to us at half the value of a house of such dimensions, and did you ever know a woman sufficiently strong minded to resist a bargain? I do not believe she would have had the courage to complete the arrangement, but she went quite far enough."
We turned down the narrow lane and skirted the dilapidated wall till we arrived at our destination. As we walked through the front garden entrance, choked up with its weeds and rank grass, and ascended the flight of steps, I asked Bob how he felt.
"It is impossible not to feel depressed," he answered; "but you will not find me fail you, Ned. We will go through what we have undertaken."
"Well said. We shall get along all right till Monday morning. There was a little furniture in one or two of the rooms, and I do not suppose it has been removed. When my wife was here we only examined the front room on the second floor; the rooms I have not seen may be habitable. I expect we shall have to go out and buy some necessaries. What have you got in your bag?"
"You shall see presently."
The cat entered the house with us, but it did not remain with us in the lobby. I saw it pass down to the basement, and it gave no sign of expectation that I should accompany it.
"That's a comfort," I remarked.
I had to explain my meaning to Bob, and he seemed to regard the departure as a significant commencement of our enterprise. We did not follow our spectral companion to the basement, but proceeded upstairs to the apartments I had already seen. In all, with the exception of the front room on the second floor, in which I had rang the bell which summoned the apparitions, there was some furniture left, and Bob expressed his astonishment that it had not been removed or sold by the last tenant.
"It would have been a simple matter," he said, "to call in a broker, who would very soon have cleared the house of every stick in it."