John drew back his head, and affected to laugh boisterously; this merriment was as much for the benefit of his cousin as of Alfred, for the former was now hurrying down the steps with ears and eyes very much on the alert.
“Gilbert Wryde!” echoed Bradfield. “Why, he’s been dead these sixteen years; you know that as well as I do.”
And he turned to his cousin with a gesture to intimate the tremendous extent to which his potations had affected poor Alfred’s vision.
But Mr. Graham-Shute had put up his double eyeglasses, and was examining the prostrate man with attentive eyes. He shook his head slowly in answer to his cousin’s gesture.
“He’s sober enough now,” he said, briefly.
Indeed, poor Marrable had been startled into sobriety compared to which that of the proverbial judge is levity itself. He now turned his eyes slowly from the spot at which he had last seen the vision which had startled him, and fixed them on John Bradfield’s face.
“He went round there,” he said, emphatically. “I’m positive. I can swear it—Gilbert Wryde!”
John Bradfield felt that his teeth were chattering. He could scarcely command his voice to answer in his usual tones:
“One of the gardeners, most likely.”
Marrable shook his head emphatically.