This was my opinion too, and I listened with breathless interest to the butler's words.
"My bedroom—as you know, Sir Hugh—is over one end of the gallery, and ever since that picture of Mr. Vasari's was put into it I have heard at night sounds as if some one were walking to and fro there, and faint cries now and then. Before going to bed I always lock the doors at both ends of the gallery, and take the keys with me, so that how any one can get in at night is a puzzle. I have come down alone several times to see who was there." Fruin was not a timid character, if his own statement were to be received as evidence. "I always come with a lamp and a loaded pistol," he added, causing me to modify my opinion of his valour. "And on opening the door the sounds always cease and the place is always empty."
"A clear proof," replied Sir Hugh, "that no one had been in the gallery, and that the sounds, caused by the wind probably, must have proceeded from some other quarter."
Fruin's air implied that he was not going to be imposed upon by this explanation.
"You hear cries?" said I. "What sort of cries?"
"I can't tell you exactly, sir, for I am never near enough to hear. Faint die-away sounds they are, like a mother crooning her babe to sleep."
"Granting, what I don't for one moment admit, that the sounds come from the gallery, what have they got to do with Mr. Vasari's picture?" the Baronet asked.
"I have been butler in this house for twenty years, Sir Hugh," said the old fellow gravely and respectfully, "and there were never such sounds in the gallery until that picture came here."
"Do you hear them every night?" my uncle asked.
"Oh no, sir, only at intervals. They may occur for two or three nights running, and then perhaps they won't be heard for a week."