"What did he say?"
"I—cannot tell," he said, with a shudder.
"Pooh, man! you had a night-mare, nothing more and nothing less," said the merchant. "You must be crazy if you expect me to believe that the boy is dead on any such absurd testimony as this. I dare say you had eaten a heavy dinner, or perhaps drank too much, and so the supposed ghost was only the offspring of your own distempered fancy, and that proceeded from a disordered stomach."
James Cromwell shook his head.
"You are wrong," he said. "I was as wide awake as I am now."
"Well, that is your affair—if you choose to believe in the reality of this visitation, well and good. That is nothing to me. But if you want me to credit the story of the boy's death, you must bring a certified statement from the coroner in your town—Madison is the name, I believe—then there will be no room for doubt."
"To do that, I shall be obliged to return to the West," said Cromwell, disconcerted.
"Then you have only yourself to blame for the extra trouble you are obliged to take. You ought not to have come away at all until you could bring with you satisfactory evidence of the boy's death."
James Cromwell looked down in dismay. This did not suit his views at all. Besides, he saw that it would be awkward to go back, and institute such proceedings so late. But Paul Morton evidently meant to keep him to it.
"Perhaps it would have been better," he said, at last.