"Why?"
"Because this is the house in which Barnes killed his wife and child, in a fit of insane jealousy; and the place has the terrible reputation of being haunted."
"Oh!"
"Yes; it is said that the ghost of a weeping woman, carrying a weeping child in her arms, is seen to wander through garden and orchard at all hours of the night, or to come in and look over the beds of the sleepers in the house, if any are found courageous enough to sleep there."
"Oh! And that is the reason, I suppose, that the house remains untenanted?" said Craven Kyte.
"Yes, that is the reason why the house, pleasant and attractive as it looks, remains untenanted; and why the garden and orchard, with their wealth of flowers and fruit, remain untouched by trespassers," said Mrs. Grey.
"It is a pity such a pretty place should be so abandoned," mused the young man.
"It is. But, you see, family after family took it and tried to live in it in vain. No family could stay longer than a week. It has now been untenanted for more than a year. I have heard that the owner offers to rent it for the paltry sum of fifty dollars a year."
"For this delightful house!"
"For this haunted house, you mean!" said Mrs. Grey.