"Cæsar didn't speak, I presume, and ask you how you were?"
But the butler, whose air of quiet and sober dignity almost atoned for the absurdity of the story, was not to be moved by his master's gibes.
"Don't you think it was fancy on your part, Fruin?" said I. "Just think how impossible it is for a figure painted on canvas to move from its frame and peer through a casement!"
"What I saw on the other side of the window was a real thing," replied the butler firmly. "It was the very face in the picture, and so would you say had you been there to see it."
"I wish to goodness we had!" said Sir Hugh. "Well, well! you may go, Fruin, unless Mr. Leslie or Mr. Willard wishes to ask you any more questions."
We had no more to put, and when the butler had withdrawn, I asked the Baronet his opinion of the story.
"Pooh, pooh, my dear boy! Outside the pale of serious discussion. I must have stronger evidence than the solitary testimony of a superstitious and dim-sighted old servant, who in the twilight mistakes some shadow across the stained panes for an apparition."
And he waved his hand with a deprecatory gesture, as if wishing to hear no more of the absurd business.
I was silent for a time, reflecting on the story I had just heard. If it had stood alone—had been the sole remarkable thing related of the picture—it would not have been entitled to consideration; but so many strange things had occurred in connexion with Angelo's masterpiece that I hesitated before pronouncing Fruin's narration to be a fable, destitute of any foundation whatever. Though at present the affair seemed coloured by the supernatural, it might have a groundwork of fact to rest upon.
"Well, Sir Hugh," remarked my uncle, "we must certainly view this mysterious picture in the morning."