“I mean this: that girl out there is the ghost that appears at the Manor House every Christmas Eve, and it is because my poor boy, as well as I myself, saw it, that his mind has become unhinged.”
“Heavens! You mean to say——”
“The poor boy has fallen, in love with a shadow—a phantom! It comes every Christmas Eve and walks from room to room. It comes up the stairs—I tell you that I have seen it—and sits on the old carved settee, and then suddenly vanishes into the air whence it came.... And that ghost is as surely that girl as I am I.”
“This is terrible—quite uncanny! Are you quite sure?”
“Sure—sure!”
“It is awful to think upon. But—but—listen to me—I have an idea. If Madge is the ghost, why not ask her down again to your place, and give Rawdon a thing of flesh and blood to transfer his affections to?”
“What do you say?”
“Madge is the best girl in the world. Every eligible man in her county, and quite as many ineligible, have wanted to marry her. You will find out how nice she is.”
Mrs Clifford sank into the chair.
“Oh that it were possible!” she whispered. “He is everything to me, my dearest boy, and until this fancy————Oh, if it were only possible!”