Just outside the back bed-room door was a damp place, as if that part of the floor had been newly washed; and when led by curiosity, I peeped through the keyhole of the haunted chamber, my eye distinctly saw an open razor lying on a dusty table.
My seeing was limited to that one object, but it was quite enough. I went up the hill thinking over the terrible secret hidden in my breast.
I longed to tell some one, but was ashamed; and, when asked why I was so pale and absent-minded, I answered with a gloomy smile—
"It is the clams."
All day I hid my sufferings pretty well, but as night approached and I thought of sleeping again in that haunted cottage, my heart began to fail. As we sat telling stories in the dusk, a bright idea came into my head.
I would relate my ghost story, and rouse the curiosity of my hearers, so that some of them would offer to stay at the cottage in hopes of seeing the spirit of the restless Tucker.
Cheered by this fancy, when my turn came I made a thrilling tale about Bezee Tucker and my night's adventure. After my hearers were worked up to a proper state of excitement, I paused for applause.
It came in a most unexpected form, however, for Mrs. Grant burst out laughing, and the two boys—Johnny and Joe—rolled about in convulsions of merriment.
Much displeased, I demanded the cause of their laughter, and then joined in the general shout when Mrs. Grant informed me that Bezee Tucker lived, died in, and haunted the tumble-down house at the other end of the lane, and not the cottage where I was staying.
"Then who or what made those mysterious noises?" I asked, relieved but rather displeased at the downfall of my romance.