“There, on the balcony, staring through the panes.... Those three Inca chiefs with their hideous heads.”
“But, Maria-Teresa, be reasonable. They are dead.... You yourself saw them dug up.... Surely you cannot believe in ghosts....”
“Those I saw were not ghosts. They were living.”
Thinking to reassure her, he began to laugh heartily.
“Don’t, Dick, don’t!... I did see them... they were exactly like those in the grave... the sugar-loaf, the cap, and the valise.... Exactly the same!... But what did they come here for?”
Don Christobal, drawn from the smoking-room by the noise, jeered at his daughter’s fears. Uncle Francis, too, appeared in a night-cap, which started everybody laughing except Maria-Teresa. To quieten her, the major-domo was sent round the house and explored the grounds. He returned to report that he had found nothing.
“You are worried by what you saw this afternoon, my child,” said the Marquis.
But Maria-Teresa would not reenter the room, and ordered another on the opposite side of the villa to be prepared for her. Dick, using every argument he could think of, finally convinced her that she had been the victim of a hallucination. Half ashamed of herself, she made him go out to the first-floor balcony with her, trying, in her turn, to efface any unfavorable impression she might have made.
The balcony on which they were was almost directly over the sea, for on this side the beach reached right up to the walls of the villa. After a time, the immense peace of the night completed Dick’s work, and the girl was perfectly quiet when she took off her bracelet.
“I think this is what has been worrying me,” she said. “I never before imagined that I saw a ghost....” And she threw the bracelet into the sea.