"How long? Ah! a long time," she murmured, speaking like one in a dream.
A sigh of relief escaped her father's lips, for her reply seemed an assurance of her sanity, and his first thought had been that fright had turned her brain. Her wild expression might well have given him this idea.
"Tell me what is the matter, darling," he said, lifting her, and stroking her hair with a fatherly tenderness. "My poor little girl!"
She gazed fearfully around, as if dreading some awful vision. Then closing her eyes with a shudder, she rested her head on his shoulder, and clung like a child to his embrace.
"Have you not seen it?" she asked in a whisper.
"We have seen nothing, that is, nothing to be frightened at. Come, open your eyes and look at me, darling. Tell me all about it. What has frightened you so?"
She was so thoroughly unnerved that it was a long time before she could be induced to talk at all. When at last she did reply her words were not a little startling.
"O, papa. I have seen George's ghost!"
My uncle shot a glance half whimsical, half nervous at me, for it was very odd that her explanation should have reference to the man of whom we ourselves had just been talking. But he affected a laugh of kindly scepticism.