"If he has really been in that box, and the handkerchief certainly seems to prove it, then some one must have got him out. Perhaps one of the servants did. Let us go and inquire. You had better all come downstairs; you look as white as the miller. There's nothing much to be frightened at, after all. If Harold were able to get out of the chest, he certainly was not smothered. As to his nose bleeding, you know that won't hurt him. Perhaps he is asleep in bed; have you looked?"
"We've ransacked every room in the house, and the servants have not seen him since six o'clock."
Ten o'clock came, and with his usual punctuality father sounded the gong for prayers. He insisted on doing it with the outer doors wide open, so that if Harold were within earshot, he would be reminded that it was bedtime. I had never been up to evening prayers before; and as I lay with my hands clasped, I looked out for a moment to the calm summer sky. There was a glorious moon, which made a path of silver among the rhododendron bushes. It all looked very beautiful, and my heart joined with delight in the words of thanksgiving which father was speaking. Then he went on to pray that we might all be guarded through the night; I thought of Harold, and said, Amen. I had said my prayers night and morning ever since I was old enough to know Who it was to whom I owed everything, but I am sure I had never really prayed before. A change came over me that evening; God seemed nearer to me, I seemed nearer to Him, and I realised fully for the first time that He was my loving Father and King.
My eyes were closed for a moment in earnest, silent prayer; when I opened them again—could it possibly be fancy?—I thought I saw a figure going swiftly down the rhododendron path.
"The ghost!" I cried, not waiting till the family were off their knees; "there's Jack's ghost again!"
Father ran out of the window; but, of course, as he had not seen the mysterious visitor when he came before, he did not know which way he went, and turned to the left. That gave the man a start; and although I called out to father which way to go, he did not succeed in finding any one.
We all waited in intense excitement till father came back; and then the finishing touch to our evening was given by our young coachman coming in with a broad grin on his face, without even waiting to knock at the door.
"If you please, mum, Master Harold's sitting on my bed. I think he's summat light-headed, for he keeps on asking how he got there, and declares that he was in the oak chest and couldn't get out. Do you mind coming to see him, mum?"
Robert had been out all the evening with my parents, and had only had time to attend to the horse and put the carriage away when the gong sounded for prayers, so he had not been in his room, which was above the coach-house, since he dressed at four o'clock. Rupert and Kathleen did a dance of delight round the table; while Jack, who was still attired in his dressing-gown, had to content himself with playing the castanets with his fingers and whistling.
"What a funny go," he cried, when his brother and sister had dropped breathless into the one big armchair. "Listen! What do you say to my ghost being the one who rescued him? If so, he must have left Robert's room when you saw him, Edric. Oh dear, what a thing it is to feel like a bottle of ginger beer, and yet have to behave as if you were as flat as ditch water, owing to your stupid foot." Then, with his usual sensitiveness, Jack felt that he had said something which might hurt me, and hastened to mend it.