Scarcely daring to breathe, they stood in tense attitudes listening for a repetition of the baby’s cry. Only an awesome, sustained silence rewarded them.
The major’s open watch upon the table ticked out the minutes—five—ten—fifteen. Then the doctor crept back to the library and quietly resumed his book. Presently Runyon joined him.
“Between you and me, Doc,” said the big fellow, “I don’t take much stock in ghosts.”
“Nor I,” returned Dr. Knox. “Major Doyle is overwrought. His imagination has played him a trick.”
Rudolph Hahn entered and lighted a fresh cigar.
“Curious thing, wasn’t it?” he said.
“No; mere hallucination,” declared the doctor.
“I don’t know about that,” answered the boy. “Seems to me a ghost would do about as a person in life did. The child cried—poor little baby Jane!—and the ghostly wail was heard in the one room in this house that is haunted—the blue room. Perhaps there’s something about the atmosphere of that room that enables those who have passed over to make themselves heard by us who are still in the flesh.”
He was so earnest that the doctor glanced at him thoughtfully over the top of his book.
“It’s the dead of night, and you’re agitated and unreasonable, Hahn. In the morning you’ll be ashamed of your credulity.”