“You may well say ‘queer,’” said Mrs. Royce. “There she stays, out in that lonely place—never seeing a soul from one month’s end to another. She’s a young woman, too—young, an’ just as pretty as a picture.[Pg 331]”
“Then you are—”
“I’m one of the few that has seen her,” said Mrs. Royce, with a sort of grim satisfaction. “That’s why I take a kind of special interest in her. I seen her the night the doctor brought her here to Wyngate a young bride. That’ll be three years ago this winter, but I remember it as plain as plain. There was a terrible snowstorm, and he couldn’t git out to his place, so he had to bring her here, and she sat right in this very room, just where you’re sitting.”
Instinctively Lexy looked behind her.
“I feel that same way myself—as if she was a ghost,” said Mrs. Royce solemnly. “Near three years ago, and her living only three miles off, an’ I’ve never set eyes on her again. I’ve never forgotten her, though, the sweet pretty young creature!”
“But why do you suppose she lives like that?”
Mrs. Royce came nearer.
“Miss Moran,” she said, “that doctor is crazy. I’m not the only one to say it. He’s as crazy—hush, now! Here’s that poor young man!”
The “poor young man” came into the room, with that very nice smile of his.
“Good morning!” he said. “I say, I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you a bit longer, Miss Moran.”