"No, Lindy will never see the ghost; he is too much of a sceptic. Even if he saw it he would not believe in it, and there is nothing a ghost hates like that. But he has seen the people who saw the ghost, and he tells their several stories very well."
"Would you tell me, Mr. Lyndsay?" asked Mrs. de Noël.
I could do nothing but obey her wish; still I secretly questioned the wisdom of doing so, especially when, as I went on, I observed stealing over her listening face the shadow of some disturbing thought.
"Well now, Cissy is thoroughly well frightened," observed Atherley. "Perhaps we had better go to bed."
"It is no good saying so to Lucinda," said Lady Atherley, as we all rose, "because it only puts her out; but I shall always feel certain myself it was a mouse; because I remember in the house we had at Bournemouth two years ago there was a mouse in my room which often made such a noise knocking down the plaster inside the wall, it used to quite startle me."
That night the storm finally subsided. When the morning came the rain fell no longer, the cry of the wind had ceased, and the cloud-curtain above us was growing lighter and softer as if penetrated and suffused by the growing sunshine behind it.
I was late for breakfast that day.
"Mr. Lyndsay, Tip is all right again," cried Denis at sight of me. "Mrs. Mallet says it was chicken bones he stole from the cat's dish."
"Is that all?" observed Atherley sardonically; "I thought he must have seen the ghost. By the bye, Cissy, did you see it?"
"Yes," said Mrs. de Noël simply, at which Atherley visibly started, and instantly began talking of something else.