“Yes, it’s been empty ever since,” she replied, and, sinking her voice to a whisper, “folks say it’s haunted. I can’t altogether bring myself to believe in ghosts—but I’ve heard noises,” and she laughed uneasily.
“Had he any children?” Pelamon asked.
“No,” the girl answered, “and he has left the money he hoarded—he was the meanest of old sticks—to the hospital for consumptives.”
“A worthy cause,” Pelamon commented.
The girl nodded. “His wife was a consumptive,” she went on. “I remember her well—a pretty, fair-haired creature with a lovely skin, and”—here she shuddered—“a shocking cough.” Then, thrusting her head close to Pelamon, and fixing him with a frightened glance, she whispered, “It was the cough that killed her!”
Pelamon stared at her in astonishment. “Why, of course,” he said. “It’s the cough that kills all consumptives. I’ve buried scores of them.”
The girl shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said, “but I daren’t tell you any more; and, after all, it’s only what we thought. Anyhow, he’s dead now, and a good job too. Did you want to see him?”
“Oh, it was nothing very particular,” Pelamon replied. “Who has the keys of the house?”
The girl’s jaws dropped and her eyes grew as big as turtle’s eggs.
“The keys!” she exclaimed. “Mercy on us, you don’t intend going there?”